


The Tale of Beren and Luthien Tinuviel

by MysticaSmith



Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Love Stories, Retold Classics, The Tale of Beren and Luthien Tinuviel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-14 22:58:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 78,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16050314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MysticaSmith/pseuds/MysticaSmith
Summary: Expanded from The Tale of Beren and Luthien Tinuviel, a short story in The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien. The original story ends the same way as The Return of the King, so I changed Morgoth from a fiery monster into a Cthulhu-like dark god by borrowing from H.P. Lovecraft, and added a few surprise twists here and there. Enjoy!





	The Tale of Beren and Luthien Tinuviel

The Tale of Beren and Luthien Tinuviel -A novel based upon the short story by J.R.R. Tolkien, as retold by Mystica Smith

 

Chapter 1

 

He would not admit it to himself, but he was lost, his path turning in and back upon itself endlessly, through field, forest and fen, past moss covered boulder and fallen log. Moss hung in long sheets from the branches as the paths bent back again, to be shrouded in mist and ferns, the air heavy and sweet. Wandering more or less aimlessly now through the ancient forest, deep and silent, he walked towards the sound of running water. Having located the small river, he made himself a basic campsite. He constructed a simple shelter out of brush and stones, using his cloak and blanket to make a serviceable bed, refilled his canteen, and built a fire. Then, he decided to fish for trout, or salmon, if they had started running. He had earlier spotted some thyme, mint and lemongrass, and started planning how to spice his fish. He would wrap the fish in the lemongrass, and then boil the mint leaves in water for tea.  
Leaving his dinner to cook, he decided to climb one of the great trees and try to get his bearings anew. Placing his sturdy pack at the base of a great oak, Beren climbed the tree and observed the heavens and mountains, marking the path of the sun. He planned to climb up again that night and observe the patterns of the stars. Then, he thought, he could find his way out of the forest and to the Gray Havens by the sea, where he might catch a ship. His family and the rest of his people were dead, slaughtered by orcs, and with the dark power of Morgoth and his wicked servant Sauron growing, taking a ship to Numenor was the most sensible thing he could think of to do. He started thinking about the old sea stories of his father and grandfather, but then shook them out of his mind. Old tales could wait. He had immediate problems to solve. Noting the path of the sun, he prepared to climb down.  
Upon descending the rough, gnarled, enormous old tree, he found that he was completely disoriented. Even his own backpack was turned around, and appeared other than its proper size. This baffled and perplexed him, since as an experienced woodsman he was not used to feeling lost in the forest at all, but rather like it was his home. He was no fool, he knew shifts in light could cause mountains to appear to move, but these looked completely different each time he climbed a tree. They had different peaks, in different directions, and once without the snow! Beren scraped himself and tore his tunic on the way down from a tree, and rinsed the blood off of himself in the river and washing his shirt; he hung it up on a nearby branch to dry. He sighed, and realized there must be magic involved. Indeed there was. Unbeknownst to him, the will of Melian was an impenetrable wall of confusion, leading orcs and the occasional wandering man or foreign elf to die in the baffling maze of the forest.  
He decided not to soak his boots while in the stream, so he took them off and set them with his wool socks beside the fire, so they would be pleasantly warm when he went to put his cold feet into them. He rolled up his pants, and waded into the stream up to his knees. Summer, he did not mind at all being shirtless and unshod. A feeling of quiet contentment enveloped him, from his relaxed mind down to his chilly toes, flowing along with it was a sensation that everything was just as the gods wanted it to be. If this place weren’t so confusing, he could live here forever, it was a land where every living thing was beautiful. He spent a quiet, pleasant afternoon in the stream until he caught another nice sized trout, more than enough for one man’s dinner. He was wishing for something soothing to smoke and cooking the trout over an open fire when he heard the loveliest singing, twining around itself in a magical, hypnotic melody. When he suddenly began to feel sleepy, he recognized it as a protective spell that pacified all natural creatures. Resisting its magic and putting the fish on a stick, not wanting to set it down lest the wild animals get it, he followed the singing, wondering what it could possibly be, maybe the woodland sprites and fairies singing to the gods of the sylvan forest? He stood very still, and looked around carefully, listening to the beautiful voice singing. He was cautious, there was no way to know what might live in a magical woodland.  
He had some experience dealing with magical, sylvan creatures before. Were-raccoons had become a scourge in the woodlands around Dorthonion, and they would use any trick they knew to thieve and sneak a free meal. They were intelligent and devious; he had lost more than one meal and backpack of supplies to them. Mother raccoon might be singing as a distraction while her babies would steal his food and ravage his camp. The babies were almost adorable, if a man did not know what they were capable of. This was clearly an enchanted wood, so perhaps these were even more powerful ones, which would make them very dangerous, indeed. Or perhaps it was a will-o-the-wisp, to lead a man off into the forest dark and through a deadfall, to his doom? He wisely remained stationary, listening carefully, in the way of a woodland animal, sensing danger or an encroaching storm. So he crouched down, silent and still, watching.  
Luthien had left her ladies behind; slow and dull they were sometimes, afraid of everything. They feared strangers, wild animals, and the unknown, so she had left them by the palace gates. What they really loved was whispering to one another, about each other, and what lady might fancy which lord, whom might look best in what gown, and the endless braiding of their hair. Such talk lost Luthien’s interest immediately. Nothing held her interest for long, save magic. Although she could read for hours, or watch a cat give birth to kittens over the course of days, she could not abide idle chatter. Thus, she had discarded their companionship as quickly as possible and gone down to the river to indulge her secret passion, smoking.   
She had begun smoking by enjoying the deep, earthy scent of fresh pipeweed and the dusky, smoky smell of it when it burnt. One of the dwarves, a visiting emissary from the great forges of the King Under the Mountain, had been not only amazed that she liked the smell, but so very honored by her company as she sat there and watched the smoke curl into the air that he had fashioned for her a most wondrous jewel into something useful, a pipe. Singing brightly to herself, she walked across the river on a fallen log, and sat down in the middle, on a mossy, soft spot. Out of her pocket she drew an object; a pipe carved from a solid piece of amethyst, iridescent and glittering, and held it to her lips. She stopped singing, and to the still unseen young man’s amazement, the lovely young elf maid, beautiful beyond words, took a puff of dwarf weed! She blew the smoke above her head and laughed. Then she stood up, thinking she was utterly alone and decided to dance. She gave no care to being graceful, twisting and bouncing however she felt.   
Quite without meaning to, Beren found himself watching her from afar as leaves in the winds of autumn, and in winter as a star upon a hill, but a chain was upon his limbs. Entranced with her deep, dark flowing hair, moving and floating silently about her as a living thing, a white flower tucked behind one ear, he watched silently, as though under a quieting spell. Toe upon toe, she held her arms out, her gown swaying around her as she sang. She stood then upon one delicate foot, perfectly balanced upon the mossy green, arms held out to her sides, a pleased smile upon her lips. He noticed her gown softly brushed the ground, and her shoes were held on by ties that wrapped both foot and ankle, so however she might dart and move, her shoes would stay on. Such loveliness, he thought, how could such beauty and grace be real? The movement of her arms and feet enchanted him, her hair floating and swirling behind her. More graceful than any doe picking her way through the forest, more elegant than any swan, Luthien stood upon her toes on a mossy log spanning the stream, arms outstretched to the air and sky, as she moved to the rhythm of the light and stream.   
Then Beren’s foot shifted, cracking but a twig, and hearing something unexpected, Luthien turned in utter surprise to see a brown haired, grey eyed young man watching her, his demeanor was one of wonder, and one far older and wiser than the rough and ragged man he appeared. She was instantly ashamed that anyone should be watching her. She startled and then dropped the object, running off the fallen log and as her foot touched the ground, she vanished from his sight, becoming one with the earth.   
Beren regretted making noise, and stopped to consider what he must have looked like, a wild man in wet pants with a fish on a stick. He waited, but the lovely maiden did not return, so he waded out into the river, and found the object she had dropped. He found it easily in the clear river water, and held it up. It was a dwarven pipe, but carved from amethyst, and set around the top with diamonds. The loveliest of objects, in his sight, and magical, because she had dropped it. He then put it in his pocket and waded back to the shore. Wondering what else to do, he went back to his campsite and thought of the maiden. All memory of his pain departed from him, and he fell into an enchantment; for she was the most beautiful of all the Children of Iluvatar. Dancing as she had been, like a flower in motion, or a butterfly. Blue had been her raiment as the unclouded heaven, but her eyes were grey as the starlit evening; her mantle was sewn with golden flowers, but her hair was dark as the shadows of twilight. As the light upon the leaves of trees, as the voice of clear waters, as the stars above the mists of the world, such was her glory and her loveliness; and in her face had been a shining light. Her voice had been as sun and star shine, as had been the fire in the depths of her eyes. Something deep within him, and yet also faint as a simple summer breeze, swirled around him as their eyes had met.   
He finished cooking his fish, and finding some greens and berries to complete his meal, watched the glittering pipe dry by the fireside. He added more wood to the fire, wrapped himself in his cloak and blanket, and fell asleep. When he awoke in the morning, he stirred up the fire again, thinking to boil some water, and then he checked the pretty pipe, and found that the dwarf weed inside had dried, and being the curious sort, he lit a stick and tried it. He had not meant to, but he spent the next few days smoking her pipe, and having all manner of both frightening and pleasant dreams and visions. He saw himself happy beyond his furthest imaginings, blissfully wedded to the dancing sylph, holding her in his arms, but he also saw himself in the grip of the ancient evils that had plagued him once before, in the death valleys outside of the realm of Morgoth.  
One vision in particular stayed with him, though he wished it did not. Underneath a sea-soaked, menacing land he saw a monstrously carven portal; hieroglyphs in an unknown language set above it. The entire vista was distorted in a prismatic fantasy as it moved by itself with crazily elusive angles of carven rock where a second glance showed concavity after the first show convexity. In this dream-place, everything was wrong, abnormal, and loathsomely redolent of spheres; some nesting inside one another in slippery upwellings. Through the door was a city of slimy green stone where dwelt unhallowed, blasphemous creatures with cuttlefish heads, dragon bodies, and scaly wings. They moved with leaping intensity through the streets of soapy, greenish black stone with golden, iridescent flecks and striations resembling no familiar substance. Other creatures were there; the loathsome fish-men he had seen before upon the Mountain, and upright, octopoid creatures with scaly, rubbery-looking bodies and a mass of feelers extruding from the mouth area, malignant whitish pulpy eyes set over them. When something was aligned, they could plunge from world to world in through the strange geometric voids, but they could not long endure the earth’s surface, with its light and dryness. He realized then that they were not all in the material world, nor did they truly live. Though they did not live, they did not really die either, and lay there forever in their gray-green stone tomb; animated by the will and spells of their great Master. Here they waited through the dark eons, for something to happen so they might live again.  
There was a path, or bridge, over the great stone city, arching both above and below the grim monoliths and sculptures at which the base was deep, primeval water that did not come from the earth, but was in fact an elemental portal. There were dim, dark stars beneath the waves, an unopened and archaic vista of utter strangeness.

To relieve his mind from the heavy visions he had experienced, he took a razor sharp knife back to the stream, and shaved his face. He was far too young to grow a wizard’s beard, he smiled to himself. Then he washed thoroughly, and by the time he was done with his cleaning ritual, he had put some mental distance between himself and the disturbing visions. Washing his hands again in the running water, he felt ready to dress and face whatever strange magic awaited him. He looked at his reflection, years younger without the stubble, and remembered one of the things his father had said to him when he was a child, “A real man shaves every day.”  
He was still there, several days after that, enjoying some wild huckleberries and the crawdads he was finding in the river, when he chanced to see the young maiden again. Elven she was, yet more, unfading and eternal, like the gods, and he was startled again by her beauty. Her features were perfect; too beautiful to be real, or of the earth, an angel of the morning. He supposed that she was on her way to the river, to the spot where she had dropped her pipe, to search for it. Indeed she was.   
Luthien had stolen away from court as soon as possible, and she sorely missed the pipe of carved amethyst, and it bothered her to lose it. The dwarves did not visit frequently enough that it could be easily replaced. More than that, her father did not know of it, and Thingol would certainly have disapproved of her smoking dwarf weed! Her mother knew, of course, Melian knew everything, but said little, unless she was directly asked. There would be no more pipes until the dwarves were to return, and even then, she doubted any of them would have thought to bring her another such gift, so more time would be lost while they crafted another in secret.   
Stepping onto the mossy log, Luthien moved out towards the center, where she thought she had dropped her pipe. Carefully she stared into the water. Staring, she could not see the amethyst, but something else caught her eye. By the riverside was a man, a Numenorean by the look of him, tall and grey eyed with something in his outstretched hand. He was the same one she had seen before, but this time he looked less wild and more handsome and intriguing. She looked upon him in fascination, for his face was as kind, sweet and fair as any of Elves.  
“Tinuviel!” he cried, calling her nightingale, for he knew no other name for her, and he wished to not frighten her this time, and the woods echoed her name. Then she halted in wonder, and fled no more, and Beren came to her. Then as she looked on him, she fell in love with him. She saw her pipe in his hands, and called to him, her voice as sweet and musical as her song.  
“Man of the Sea! Return to me that which is mine!”  
“Gladly I shall! Do you wish I should bring it to you, or that you shall come to me?”  
“Come to me, Man of the Sea!” she laughed. For this man, tall and fair, had cleaned himself, and was the selfsame one she had seen before, then appearing so wild and uncouth, lacking both shirt and shoes, his hair no longer matted and tangled, but rather smooth and free. He waded slowly into the water, weaponless, bearing her pipe in his outstretched hand. She gazed upon him and saw there a youth and beauty that few of the Eldar ever possessed or retained. She saw a temporary state of being; an intense sense of mindfulness that was both unfamiliar and intriguing at once. Every moment was precious and important, never to come again, because of life’s fleeting intensity.  
“This belongs to you,” he told her, “And I must apologize, that I have smoked it all, that which I found inside and dried out again. I shall replace it, if you would but give me a chance to do so.”  
She found this most amusing. “Of herbs to smoke I have much, but of pipes I had but one. Sit here beside me upon the fallen log, and tell me who you are and how you have come to be here in the Wood of Melian.”  
So he sat down beside her, and said, “It is a long, sad tale, of the destruction of my people and our towns and villages, the orcs, and the death of my mother and father. I had been sent on a scouting mission by my father, to spy upon the ways of the Enemy, and was far afield when the encampment was taken. As I slept in the forest I dreamed that carrion birds sat thick as leaves upon bare trees beside a mere, and blood dripped from their beaks. Then I was aware in my dream of a form that came to me across a great distance, and it was the wraith of Gorlim, one of my father’s men. He appeared to me to tell me of how Sauron had captured and tricked him into revealing the location of our encampment, and bade me to make haste and warn my father. Then I awoke, and sped through the night, and by the second morning, I came back to where they should have been, but as I drew near the carrion birds rose from the ground and sat in the alder trees and croaked in mockery. There a terrible sight met my eyes, and I knew it could only be the foul, debased work of orcs, and so I buried my father’s bones, and those of his men, and raised a cairn of boulders above them, and swore upon it an oath of vengeance. Then I pursued the orcs that had slain my father and his kinsmen, and I found their camp by night at Rivil’s Well above the Fen of Serech, and remaining silent and stealthy as a wildcat, I was able to come near to their fire unseen and unheard. There I saw their foul captain was boasting of his deeds in their coarse, uncouth language, and he held up the hand of Barahir that he had cut off as a token for Sauron that their mission was fulfilled; and the Ring of Felagund was on that hand. He was cavorting about, shaking it and laughing, mocking him. I was filled with rage and loathing, seeing that foul monster holding aloft the hand of my own father, and to kill that loathsome thing in triumphant revenge was my paramount desire. I burned with fury and hate, and so I leapt out from behind a rock, frightening and surprising them, and slew both the captain and several of the others before they had recovered from their shock. I took the hand with the ring still upon it and flew away into the forest, and being defended by fate, the orcs arrows all missed.” He showed her the ring that was now upon his finger, twin serpents with eyes of emerald. She looked sad at his tale, and they smoked together for awhile. “You are very kind to sit and listen to my grim, lengthy tale. What is your name, lady?” he asked her.  
“I am called Luthien, by my people, but I like the name you have given me, Tinuviel, nightingale, I think that I do prefer that. What is your name?” As she looked upon him, an unfamiliar feeling came over her heart, entranced by the handsome smiling face before her, gray eyes twinkling merrily, and she fell in love with him.  
“I am Beren, son of Barahir, from across the distant seas of Numenor. I apologize,” he added, “for appearing as I did before, as a crazed wild man, with a fish on a stick.”   
With that, they both broke into laughter, and she said, “That was an unexpected view, I must admit, though I can only imagine how I must have appeared, a long haired leaping wood sylph, or some such creature, having slipped forth from her tree!”  
“Not at all,” he told her, “You are very beautiful, and I have learned a valuable lesson in the importance of shaving, and wearing clothes.” They smiled at one another, and he added, “Tinuviel, I could not be more lost than I am. I have tried studying the moon and stars, yet I am unable to find my way. Never before have I become lost in the woods, but this unfamiliar, and the stars and the mountains themselves became confused, and the roads change when I descend from a tree. What manner of enchantment is this?”  
“You were confused because this land is under the spell of the Maiar; it is called the Girdle of Melian, a spell which protects this realm absolutely.”   
She took him by the hand and they walked and talked together until the nightfall, when she was still with him, sitting beside his fire at his very simple campsite. As she looked on him, young and handsome with wisdom beyond his mortal years, doom fell upon her, and she loved him; yet she slipped from his arms and vanished from his sight even as the day was breaking. Then Beren lay upon the ground in a swoon, as one slain at once by bliss and grief; cold as stone, and his heart barren and forsaken. And wandering in mind he groped as one that is stricken with sudden blindness, and seeks with the hands to grasp the banished light. Thus he began the payment of anguish for the fate that was laid on him; and in his fate Luthien was caught and being immortal she shared in his mortality, and being free received his chain; and her anguish was greater than any other of the Eldalie has known.   
Beyond his hope she returned to him where he sat in darkness, and there in the Hidden Kingdom she laid her hand in his. Thereafter often she came to him, and they went in secret through the woods together from spring to summer; and no others of the Children of Iluvatar have had joy so great, through the time was brief.

 

 

Chapter 2

As she held him one evening, she asked him, “Do you know of the Dreamworld?”  
“Of course!” he laughed, thinking she wanted to play.   
“Tell me what you see.”  
“I see what I wish to see, and have adventures such as I most would like to have; with my family and friends, some long departed from this Middle Earth. There I speak with my father and mother, and we remember our early years. The Dreamworld has a rosy, golden glow, and I find joy and peace there, except for the times when my mind is taken away to places I do not enjoy, and I see fearsome sights, such as I do not wish to recall.”  
She thought upon this for a moment. “Come into the Dreamworld with me, and you shall see something vaster,” she hinted. “Something so beautiful and indescribable I simply must show you!”   
“I suppose my parents and the Dorthonion warriors could adventure without me for an evening,” he smiled. “Take me to see that of which you speak.”  
“This is my world,” she whispered, and so saying, they both fell asleep, wrapped in one another’s arms. Journeying to the Dreamworld with Luthien was both effortless and powerful, with a force he had not experienced before. A sensation of lightness took him, and he was able to breathe, which he had never before thought of in dreams. He felt himself vibrate to the melody of light itself, which sang; never before had he felt such profound joy in sound. He beheld the Two Trees of the Valar, and while he had seen them a thousand times before; now he felt them sing to him, and weightless as thought, brilliant as living fire; whilst below them was a scene of palatial magnificence, unrolling beneath him as they rose past the Trees and onward to the vista that expanded beneath them. Wide plains and graceful valleys, high mountains and inviting grottoes, covered with every lovely growing green thing; pulsing with life. Colors and sounds blazed forth in fantastic array, and he felt them as well; the pulsing heat of the oranges and reds, the soothing aquatic coolness of blue, and the forested sweetness of green. The immersion was total and complete; Luthien beside him was a resplendent being of love and luminosity, a feeling of joy and completeness. When he beheld her, he saw her then as she truly was; a goddess, not a creature of flesh and blood. 

They spoke of many things as they walked through the woods, the morning sunshine coming through the forest canopy in pillars of light. “Tell me of the Sea,” she asked him. “Sometimes I feel a longing for it.”  
“I have seen it, though the memory is dim,” he admitted. “When I was very small, I resided in Numenor, and my father lived upon the sea until we received word from our people in Middle Earth that they needed our help. Then it was that he decided to return to Dorthonion, so with my parents and many of their friends we boarded a gray ship. All I really remember about the journey is playing with two other small boys, and being told constantly not to run on the decks. When we did so, or were otherwise naughty, as small boys sometimes are, our mothers would separate us, and my father would sit with me by the side of the ship and talk. He told me that more wonderful than the stories of men or the knowledge of books is the secret lore of the ocean. Blue, green, gray, white or black; smooth, ruffled, or mountainous; the ocean is not silent. All his days he watched it and listened to it, and so he knew it well. I remember hearing happy tales of calm beaches and near ports, and stories of warm islands and friendly natives; shores that men and elves alighted upon, never to depart as they lived out their days in pleasant pastimes like fishing and frolicking in the waves of warm water. Those were the tales of my early childhood, as an older boy he told me more complex tales, and spoke of other things; of things more strange and distant in space and time. Sometimes at twilight the gray vapors of the horizon would part to grant him glimpses of the ways beyond; and sometimes at night the deep waters of the sea grew clear and phosphorescent, to grant him glimpses of the ways beneath. He said those visions were of the ways that were and the ways that might be, as of the ways that are; for the ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of time. He told me that he had sailed to Valinor from Middle Earth upon one of the white ships; it would come out of the south, gliding smoothly and silently when the moon was full and high in the heavens. Upon it rode a man, bearded and robed, and he invited my father to join him, and so he did, being greeted at once with the soft songs of the crewmen as they glided away into the mysterious west, golden with the glow of that full, mellow moon. Have you ever seen the sea?” he asked suddenly.  
“No,” she admitted. “I have read much of it, and spoken at length to those who have, especially all who remember the journey from Valinor, and endless questions have I asked them!” she laughed, recalling the merciless questioning of a young child. “Tell me more of your father’s journey, I find it fascinating.”  
“Of course I will, if you wish it, although I warn you these are sailors’ stories!”  
“I want to hear them anyway, and then compare them to the sea-tales I have heard from others, perhaps in the middle of all might lie the truth.” At this Beren broke into laughter, remembering some of his father’s friends’ stories.  
“There was certainly no lack of sea stories when I was a child,” he told her, a smile still on his face. “Just add beer or wine, and like magic, sea stories emerge.”  
She laughed along with him and said, “Tell me the rest of your father’s voyage.”  
“Of course,” he said, taking her hand as they walked beneath the sunshine and green leaves. “He had boarded the White Ship, and when he awoke the next morning, the day dawned rosy and effulgent, and he beheld the green shore of far lands, bright and beautiful. Up from the sea rose lordly terraces of verdure, tree-studded, and showing here and there the gleaming white roofs and colonnades of strange temples, and the bearded man told him that he beheld the oft forgotten land of Xar.”  
He took her hand and she squeezed it in joy as they walked down the path.  
“Xar is a heavily forested shore, to which men and elves go who desire the adventures of an unknown land, and half the people on the ship would depart, never to re-board. Those who merely sail away from the travails of Middle Earth feel no need to again board the ship; they stay in the verdant rolling green hills of Xar, the gleaming white roofs of temples and palaces. Xar is no island, but rather the tip of an enormous land mass. There are other islands, as yet uninhabited. Elves and Men alight upon the shores of Xar and wander towards the mountains; there they journey over them to the cities and farms, the lushness of the forests and whatever lies beyond. Xar is its own land, and those who have continued on to Valinor or Numenor have reported it to be so vast that none have ever found its end. The white ship docked there for a time, while they enjoyed the gentle beauty of the land of Xar, and then they sailed on, bypassing the Isle of Thallarion, the City of a Thousand Wonders, which appears so bright and alluring to the sailor passing by. Yet, into Thallarion, many have entered but none have returned. Therein walk only daemons and mad things that are no longer men, and the streets are white with the unburied bones of those who have looked upon the eidolon Lathi, which reigns over the City.   
“Next they passed by the isle of Zura, appearing bright and lovely with the swaying palms and blossoms of every hue, lovely groves and radiant arbors beneath a meridian sun. Yet, to draw closer brings the lethal, charnel odor of plague stricken towns and uncovered cemeteries. Few people wish to approach, let alone depart, on the shores of Zura. Those who are foolhardy or curious enough to do so never return. After that, are the shores of Numenor. There were many other ships there, gray vessels of men and the white ships of the elves. To reach Valinor, one much take a white ship, for they alone are skippered by the elves that have been around the Horn and sailed through the swift, rushing, restless sea and between the White Pillars. The way is treacherous, and many ships have been dashed upon the rocks around the Pillars. Beyond Numenor lie the storm-ridden seas around the rocky outcropping known as the Horn of Ruin. Inexperienced sailors are drawn onto the rocks, beyond which lies Naria, which the elves say is much like Middle Earth, only with twice the rain and no summers.” She looked over at him in surprise, “Some truly enjoy that,” he said, observing her disbelief, “Beyond Naria lies Sona-Nyl, or Valinor, so the aquatic elves and my forefathers have told me.”  
“I see why people stop at Xar or Numenor,” Luthien laughed, and then asked curiously, “So is it true what they say about mermaids?”   
“What do your people say?”  
“That they are lovely women with fishes’ tails who sing beautifully, and sometimes fall in love with mortal men,” she smiled.  
“Then they’ve put owls and billy goats together and gotten hootin’ nannies,” he said, watching her laugh. “The Aquatic, or Sea Elves certainly fall in love with mortals; fairly often, and there is plenty of singing at the weddings; most Numenoreans have at least a sixteenth sea elf in them. That’s the nice and factual part. I’ve heard other stories, about the beautiful maidens out on the rocks, sometimes called sirens, singing like, well, like you do, but it’s often a spell by the water nymphs to fool sailors. As my father told me, if you see a woman or man with a fish’s tail that you do not already know by name, it wants to eat you. Some tribes are friendly, but some of the merfolk are predatory, and think sailors are easy meat. Never take the bait.”  
“Then how would you ever meet one?” Luthien wondered aloud.  
“There are old alliances, treaties and tribal loyalties that our elders know all about, from the ancient times when the evil fish-men were stalking the earth. Some of the merfolk sided with them, and want to destroy us; others are foes of darkness, and work with us. Unfortunately, they look alike to the untrained eye, and the evil ones play surface dwellers false.”  
“So they are trying to gain advantages in their own realm by manipulating surface dwellers,” she surmised, “When not outright eating them.”  
“Precisely,” he said. “I was always told that it is best to nod politely and keep going. Never give the merfolk reason for offense, and you certainly do not want any of them obsessing about you, and trying to waylay you. From what my grandfather said, and he had met some, they were not very bright. He also said the predatory ones do not look you in the eye, or even at your face, they stare at your muscles.”  
“That would be frightening,” she said, thinking about such creatures. “But that part certainly makes sense. They care nothing for what comes out of your mouth, only for what they wish to go into theirs.” He smiled and she sat there for a moment in thought. Then she asked, “Have you elf blood in you? I am merely curious.”  
“About an eighth,” he admitted. “One of my foremothers found herself a handsome elven sailor,” he laughed.  
“I have no doubt that she did,” Luthien laughed. “I know I certainly have.”  
“Tinuviel, I have never by myself sailed anything larger than a canoe.”  
“I have not even done that. I have lived a very sheltered life.”  
“I admit to longing for the sea at times myself, and wanting to swim out and float around for a time on a clear, light blue sea, and then ride one of the waves back to shore. When I was very small, we used to play in the rolling waves on the shores of Numenor, and ride upon little boards. It was great fun, and the waters were patrolled both above and below, to keep the children safe, but every rare so often, a shark made it through. Sharks have a taste for elves, and little ones in particular. The ocean is two faced, presenting a lovely, aquamarine façade under a bright sunny day, and then all of a sudden a great fish with jaws like a dragon leaps up from below.”  
“How terrible,” she said, “That did not happen often, did it?”  
“Very, very rarely,” he said. “The shores where children played were patrolled constantly, by men and elves on the surface and aquatic elves beneath. I never saw anyone eaten, although my mother said she was knocked off of her board by a small one that slipped past the guards.”  
“She was fortunate to escape.”  
“Very,” he agreed. “But that was the only shark to have made it through the guards in a generation,” he explained. “As I said, it is very rare that anything passes by the undersea elven guards.”  
“That being the case,” she smiled, “I would like to play in the waves and ride these boards.”   
“If you can get me there, I’ll go,” he answered. “Tell me why is it the elves always say that mortals cannot reach the Blessed Shores?”  
Luthien laughed. “As I said before, the elves are not immortal, and all is vanity.”  
“I see,” he laughed as well. “Discouraging the riff raff from moving in?”  
“There are many fairy stories the Elves tell their children and the myth of immortality started long ago, having been repeated so often as to have become true in the eyes of both the teller and the listeners. Their lives are long, by the reckoning of human men, but it will not last forever, and since most of them are slain by enemies or die from misfortunes after only a few hundred years, the myth is seldom questioned. The very elderly elves who realize the truth tell others they are going to Valinor, and either die quietly alone, or a group of elders will leave together, and live out the remaining days of their lives in seclusion.”   
“If I were to set out to Numenor from here, what would I do?”  
“First, we,” she laughed, “Not just you, but you and I, we would journey over the mountains in the west and catch one of the White Ships from the Gray Havens. If we only wanted to go to Numenor, we would take one of the Gray Ships, and it would cost us less!” They laughed together as they walked, and she continued, “Then we would sail into the West. First we should stop over at the Land of Xar, for after hearing your stories I am intrigued. Perhaps it will be that somewhere on that vast land we shall find our new home.” They were silent for a moment, each thinking that would be a pleasant journey, and would take them far from war, grief, and despair. So it was they made their plans, without thought or leave of King Thingol or any other.

Walking in the forest, pillars of light falling down to earth through the trees, Luthien turned and asked him, “Something horrifying has happened to you, for I see it in your eyes. Will you not tell me of it?”  
Beren stopped walking and stood still for a moment. “Do you truly wish that I retell a story such as that in the light of day?”  
“Yes,” she answered definitively. “I wish to know truly what it is that borders my realm.”  
Beren took a deep breath, and recounted his tale of the Mount of Gorgoroth. “All that land was filled with evil, and all clean things had departed from it; and I was pressed so hard that at last I was forced to flee from Dorthonion. In time of winter and snow I forsook the land and grave of my father and climbed into the high regions of Gorgoroth, the Mountains of Terror, and there came into my heart an overwhelming desire that I should go down into the Hidden Kingdom, as I felt that I must, despite stories I have heard that no mortal foot had yet trodden the forbidden path.  
“Terrible was the southward journey. Sheer were the precipices of Ered Gorgoroth, and beneath their feet were shadows that were laid before the rising of the moon. Beyond lay the wilderness of Dungoretheb where the sorcery of Sauron and the power of Melian came together, and horror and madness walked. There spiders of the fell race of Ungoliant abode, spinning their unseen webs in which all living things were snared; and monsters wandered there that were born in the long dark before the Sun, hunting silently with many eyes. No food for Elves or Men was there in that haunted land, but death only. That journey is not something I care to remember, it is a nightmare, something that lifts itself from my deepest thoughts to intrude when I do not want it; I fear the horror returning to my mind. No other man or elf has ever found the way, for I found their bones lying upon the paths that led to myriad deaths.”  
“That I know,” Luthien said, “But tell me of the other part, did you see the monolith?”  
Beren turned pale as the snowdrifts of winter. “Monolith? How do you know of the horrid monolith?”  
“I have seen it, in my mind, and the creatures around it. Also my mother has warned me of it. Tell me what you saw.”  
“Under the dripping moon, the mountains looking like citadels of a fortress, with the monolith in the center, and the…” he paused and looked at her hesitantly, “tentacled creatures?”  
“The same,” she answered. “Tell me everything.”  
“The memory is very evil. If the gods might grant me one favor may it be to erase that sight from my mind and the sounds that went with it.”  
“Of course it is, the ancient evil one and his minions are the greatest evil that is, since they are not of this world but rather of the Outer Planes, before there were breathing things on this earth. The ancient ones detest all warm blooded creatures that breathe the free air, and they seek to cover everything at last in a total darkness, cold and reptilian.”  
Beren shuddered. “Do you really want to hear it? It was as if I had wandered off of this earth, and into something else, for not only the land but the sky was different.”  
“I would hear your tale,” she said, motioning for him to get comfortable before telling his awful tale. He sat upon the soft earth, under a tall oak tree, and closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the horror. She sat down beside him and held his hand.  
“The way was dark, and full of dead, stunted things. The remains of the trees were black and bent, fetid swamp water all around. I was comforted only by the sword at my side and the bow in my hand. The sounds that assailed me were indescribable, they were as if a thousand demons were laughing at and mocking me, in shrieking voices that rode across the wind, but I ignored them. The unholy screaming that came from the bent and burnt stumps also meant nothing to me, though it had caused the death of many others. Although it grieved me deeply to see their bones lying around, I realized there was nothing I could do to help them, and went forward, toward the one high point in the accursed swamp. I heard insane shouts and harrowing screams, soul chilling chants and dancing green devil flames of weird swampiness, though I saw no other living thing. All day I forged steadily westward, guided by a far away sight which rose higher than any other elevation in the desert of death. I made for it, and day after day, it seemed scarcely nearer than when I had first espied it. By the fourth evening I attained the base of the mound, which turned out to be much higher than it had appeared from the distance; an intervening valley setting it out in sharper relief. Too weary to ascend, I slept in the shadow of the hill. I do not know why my dreams were so wild that night; but ere the waning and fantastically gibbous moon had risen far above the eastern plain; I was awake, and determined to sleep no more. Such visions as I had experienced were too much for me to endure again. In the glow of the moon I saw how unwise I had been to travel by day. Without the glare of the parching sun, my journey would have been far easier. The hilltop was close, so I took my pack and climbed up to the top. While the journey had been a vague horror to me, the sight from the hilltop brought it all into sharp clarity. I looked down the other side into an immeasurable pit, whose watery black recesses the moon had not yet soared high enough to illumine. I felt myself on the edge of the world; peering over the rim into a fathomless chaos of eternal night. My attention was captured by a vast and singular object on the opposite slope; which rose steeply up into the sky. I told myself it was merely a piece of stone, as it gleamed whitely in the newly bestowed rays of the ascending moon. Yet, the obvious fact that its contour and position were not altogether the work of Nature was growing in my mind, and despite its obvious magnitude, I realized that it was but the barest tip of the whole, and that it spanned an abyss which had yawned at the bottom of the sea since the world was young, and I suddenly realized that the monolith before me was the work of living and thinking creatures. I hid behind a dead tree, feeling that something horrid might see me. Yet, I had to look. I saw below that the chasm was not filled with common dirt but rather deepness, a body of water so deep and dark I could not fathom it. As the moon rose, I saw illuminated upon the monolith writing and pictographs, showing aquatic symbols such as fishes, eels, octopi, crustaceans, mollusks, and the like. There were pictures of things unknown in this world, but whose forms I saw rising from the depths. Grotesque beyond imagination, they were damnably human in general outline despite webbed hands and feet, shockingly wide and flabby lips, glassy, bulging eyes, and other features even less pleasant to recall. I stared in silence, wondering what I was seeing, when suddenly It arose.  
“There was only a slight churning in the water to mark its rise to surface, the thing slid into view above the dark waters. Vast and loathsome, it embraced the monolith, flinging its gigantic scaly arms, while it bowed its hideous head and gave vent to certain measured sounds. The creatures around it joined in, an unholy chorus that shook my soul and I slumped down and lay on the earth, as I could bear to see no more. My hands were shaking and I heard only my own heart in my ears and throat, pounding as though it would burst, and then the darkness changed; to let me know that the sun would soon be rising. I stood up and fled, and I ran like a leaping deer in the cold, white moonlight, wanting to put as great a distance as possible between myself and the horror I had seen. When I stopped running, it was days later and I felt that my heart would burst. Since I was then in a forest, green and real, I curled up under a living tree, and finally feeling safe beneath its branches, I slept. I must have slept there for a fortnight, or so I thought, as the moon was different when I awoke. There I wandered, lost and disoriented, and several days later, I found you.”  
“I know what it was that you saw,” she said gravely, chin on folded palms, “For that is also what haunts my thoughts and visions of the future. I know what they are, the beings you saw, and their evil god. You saw the true physical form of Morgoth, all disguises thrown aside. The creatures worshipping him must be the evil fish men the Sea Elves hunt. They hate us, and everything that breathes air. It was their world, eons ago, before the land rose from the sea, and they damn us and our world.” She stood up and took his hand, “Evil has many forms, whether on land or sea.”  
He stopped and thought for a moment. Then he looked up, suddenly very worried about what unknown and un-thought of dangers the air might hold as well. “You are correct,” he realized. “They are the Ancient Ones, the Nameless Ones of our songs and legends, the awfulness that the Valar drove away with the light of the Sun. The Sea Elves speak of them as living under the ocean, near its very bottom; and refer to them as something monstrous.”  
“They are confined to the depths of the ocean, or else retire to the Outer Planes that they belong in. The Elemental Plane of Water intercepts this one in the deepest, darkest places,” she said. The ways of the gods and the other planes of existence were known to her.  
Beren looked up, “It is only in the light of day that we can speak of such matters without the madness coming upon us. Yet it seems to me that it is not the beings confined to the depths we must worry about the most, but rather his minions of the land.”  
“Darkness takes many forms, and we are not the only ones fighting it,” she answered. “But you looked upon the most ancient of evil things and not only lived; you have remained sane, where all others have become bones upon the hills.”  
He stood silent for a moment, and then he understood; death by blade of orc or troll was almost comforting when there were once cold, soulless ones from the depths. The very thought of warm blood and air was comforting. The blades of elves and men were all part of the gods’ great plan, played out above their heads, the gods of creatures that felt love, gazed up at the sky, and breathed air. Beren took her hand, and they walked on in silence, feeling the warmth of her hand in his. He thought again of his vision of the underground grotto where all things were strange, the terrible vividness of the Cyclopean city, and told her of it as well. They were silent then for a time, contemplating what such a vision might mean.  
 

Chapter 3

 

“We shall leave this place, just we two, and catch a ship to the shores of Numenor,” she decided the next day. It was an ordinary, overcast day, with clouds and rays of sunshine breaking through the oppressive greyness of the sky. She held his hand, “It was where you were going to begin with, and now I shall accompany you.”  
“What will your parents think of that?” he asked, sounding worried, and wondering if any had noticed her continued absence, for days and nights at a time. He was still expecting a shot in the back from an elven bow.  
“You are my only friend,” she told him. “Every hour I spend away from you I feel only emptiness and boredom, the loneliness returning. My mother does not mind, and we have plenty of time.” Then she brightened up and said suddenly, “I know a place you will like, come with me!” He followed her down a trail lined with green ferns and wildflowers, that it seemed she alone could find and follow, and when he turned around, it had vanished behind them. The woods and the paths were ever shifting, always seeming to disappear around some corner or another when they had been walking in a straight line. He was almost certain the trees were speaking to each other.  
“Where are we going?” he wondered aloud as it began to rain. The drops began to fall on the leaves overhead. A feeling of excitement came over him, rising from his feet up from the earth, burning from extremity to heart and above. There set upon him a feeling of harmony and contentment under the boughs of cedar and pine.   
“To a very magical place,” she laughed, “An eternal, silver spring of living water, hidden within these enchanted woods. There you shall set aside the frailty of the Edain if you bathe in it with me. You have nothing to lose but sadness and doubt.” She held out her hand to him.  
“That certainly sounds agreeable, I shall go there,” he said, aware as he took her hand that some of the trees turned to look. She lead him through a wooded maze, the trees seeming to step aside out of her way, as did the firs and rhododendrons, lifting their branches to allow them to pass, then closing the way behind them. He was commenting upon the large pink flowers on the mountain laurels, as they passed through a thicket and then he saw a sight that took his breath away. There was a spring coming forth from the rocks, and it had formed a beautiful pool, but it was warm, with steam floating up from it, rocks and flowers perfectly placed, and a log across one side so one might sit up out of the water. “Who made this?”  
“I did,” she smiled. “This is my secret place, made with such enchantments as I possess. Before tonight, I have always come here alone.”  
“It is wonderful,” he marveled. “I have never seen anything so lovely. Can you touch the water?”  
“We shall do more than touch it,” she laughed, removing her gown and stepping lightly into the water, her long hair floating around her in a cloud, white skin reflected in the moonlit water, the tiny concentric waves moving out from around her as she advanced, her graceful hands slightly touching the water’s surface as she walked, tiny glints in the water. Pink and white lilies also grew there; Luthien’s own creation, able to thrive in the water’s warmth. Clear white starlight shone in her eyes against the backdrop of the moon. She had a presence that drew everything around her to her will. “Come along!” she called sweetly, her arms out to him.  
“Those trees are laughing at me,” he said, looking over his shoulder at several evergreens which seemed to be making noises no plant ever should. “The trees are whispering to each other, I am not certain I want them seeing me without my clothes.”  
“They will get over it,” she said, holding her graceful white arms out to him.  
“That or they’ll laugh for a really long time,” he pointed out.  
“As you wish,” she agreed, and it became dark, with only the starlight lighting the water and the woman within. “Feel better?”  
“Yes,” he said definitively, feeling like the voyeuristic pines couldn’t laugh at his nakedness in the dark. He folded up his clothes next to hers and stepped into the warm pool. “This is wonderful!” he exclaimed. “I could live here, if those evergreens would quit snickering.”  
“They have very limited opportunities for fun,” she observed. “After all, they make love by releasing pollen spores that make everyone sneeze, and their children are pine cones. How much fun can that be?” She laughed, admiring his perfect body and shy way of looking around, worried that the trees were watching. Then she kissed him and sang,

I make myself of a one with you   
My love,  
Take my hand  
And say you’ll follow me  
I will share my life  
With you and show you things   
Beyond the mortal realm  
To the edges of time  
Where the silence is the deepest,  
And light and sound are tones  
Making the music of eternity  
I will take you to  
Places that I have been

“Of course I will, if it be what you wish,” he answered, enraptured by her loveliness and the magical, enchanting sounds of her singing. “I will follow you.” Drops of rain fell upon his shoulders, and the feeling of coolness falling from the skies and the heat from the pool, joined together in the happy way he felt inside. For ever after, rainy days would be magical to him, wherever he found himself. “I have known for a long time that you were going to come into my life, I just did not know when. I have felt so lonely for so long!” she said, and then looked aside, composing her feelings, so as not to throw them at him in a wave, “The curse of the immortals is to remember such loves forever, and to never escape their voices,” she said, and he had a sense of reeling in time, as though he had been thrown down a well, and after foundering for a moment, he recovered himself, and nodding in acknowledgement, understood the rest of what she said, and there was a rush of understanding, in his mind and his heart, and taking a deep breath, he stood at last above it. To be the love of a goddess was beyond anything he could ever have hoped for.  
He touched her, the sweet sensation of his arms around her, as if she were a moonbeam in ethereal, earthly form, and kissed her shoulder, and then her neck. Even the snickering pines were silent. She could bend everything around her to her will, and it seemed to Beren that thousands of tiny rainbows glittered in the air around her; glimmering for a second and then scintillating into otherness. As he kissed her lips he felt a sense of exhilaration, and her dark hair was scented with roses, violets and angelica.   
As she kissed him she said, “I love you,” and squeezed him with her pale, thin arms.  
“I can’t imagine why,” he replied. “I am honestly mystified. You should put me forthwith on a ship back to Numenor and then return to your parents.”  
“What on earth would make me want to do that?” she laughed. “You are far too humble, and for no good reason, although it makes me desire you all the more.”  
They remained at the magic pool for the evening, and Luthien sang spells of beauty and nature, and as she sang the land would transform itself into whatever she wished it to be.

She often sang songs to him, and she explained the magic in music. “Most spells are voice activated,” she explained. “It taps into the force and power of the feelings behind the spells. I could teach you.”  
“I will learn anything you will teach me,” he answered.  
She demonstrated how her spells and magic worked, and he watched in fascination.   
“Now you try one,” she told him, with a soft laugh. She wanted to try to teach Beren some magic, and since most spells were accomplished by singing, she worked with him on it, but he could not seem to make up a good one.  
“Although I must caution you that I am not a singer,” he answered. “I never have been. I pretended to sing in our children’s groups!” This made her laugh.   
“Try anyhow, sing one for me.”  
“It will resemble children’s drivel.”  
“Let us hear it, and I shall judge for myself.”

Under the laughing trees,  
Who point and snicker endlessly  
Because they’ve nothing else to do!  
Her eyes pools of wisdom,  
My heart a shoe,  
Her feet step lightly,  
As I look upon her boobs….

“Stop, stop,” she laughed, the trees bursting into gales of laughter yet again, branches shaking pine needles all over everything. “Stop that, I cannot listen to any more! That was the worst poem I have ever heard!”   
“I told you singing was not a talent I possess, nor am I a magician. Besides, those are not normal, silent trees to be doing that.”  
Luthien threw her arms around him, saying, “They are Ents, Beren, and Huorns, the tree herders and the wild tree spirits. Others are merely trees that have been ensorcelled into speech.”  
“Who would want to do that?” he asked, mystified. “If I had such power, the last thing I would want is heckling evergreen trees.”  
“The Ents are older than the Elves,” Luthien laughed, “And the Valar have a sense of humor. I never realized how bored I was until I met you! We have so much fun, more fun than I ever thought was possible. We laugh all the time, and everything is funny because you make it that way! I want to live with you for the rest of your life, in your world or mine, it does not matter to me which.”  
“But I am a mortal man; you are a half-goddess!”  
“Beren, you have no idea what it is like, always being alone, never having anyone like yourself to even talk to. There is no one like me, I am always alone. I like being with you. I had lived one long, endless afternoon for hundreds of years. Why would I cherish that? When we are together, I do not feel that awful, gnawing aloneness and boredom. With you I feel such a renewed joy in life! We have fun, even when we are just walking together in the woods. There is no doubt in my mind, it is you, and I have always been waiting for you, I just did not know it until you arrived. I would rather have one joyful lifetime with you than wait endlessly for nothing, remembering only that I had a chance at happiness, but was too slow to take it.”  
Beren looked very concerned for a moment, “Perhaps you think that now, but would you not be giving up immortality for me, as the ancient legends say? That might be a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”  
“A physical body makes more physical bodies, it is the spirit that concerns me, and you have a wonderful spirit, as well as a very nice physical body.”  
“I must point out to you that although you are the most wonderful woman I have ever met, and these have been the happiest days of my life, and I would even give up fishing for you, I do not think your parents will like this at all. You should probably spend more time at home, so they do not become angry with you. Besides, we can always be together in the Dreamworld.”  
“We can be together in both worlds,” she laughed, and then added, “Speaking of fishing, my dear, and all the creatures of earth, wind and sea are our sisters and our brothers, and we should not eat them. Come with me, we shall find those things that are given to us freely.”   
So saying, as they wandered through the woods together, she fed him roots, nuts, berries and mushrooms, whilst she taught him to speak to the beasts and birds. He learnt much, and was amazed by how easily she taught him things he was surprised he hadn’t noticed before. Some of the roots weren’t too bad, some were filling and fleshy like bread, but others were fibrous and tough, requiring a great deal of cooking to make them palatable. “The dwarves cultivate these things that grow under the earth,” she told him.   
As with their companions the Sea Elves, Numenoreans were fishing and sailing folk, who distrusted anything land-based that they felt might be poisonous, and this definitely included mushrooms. Beren looked askance at them, unwilling to even touch the suspicious fungi; and it was only after Luthien ate them several times that he would suspend his mother and father’s warnings and dare to try some, since he and his people associated them with painful, vomiting death.  
“I will tell thee a secret, Beren,” she confided one day, as he followed her, arms stretched out to keep his balance as they crossed another stream atop a fallen log, “A secret that my mother told me that most of the elves do not know. They are not immortal, as the Valar and Maiar spirits are, they will live a long time, but not forever. Nothing lasts forever. No body of flesh lasts forever. Even the sea and sky change over time.”  
“That makes sense to me,” he agreed. “But why do they make on as if they are?”  
“Because they want so very much for it to be true!” she explained.  
“Tell me more about the spirits.”  
“A spirit is immortal so long as it has attention, or a physical body to return to. The body charges up the spirit, feeding it energy. When the body has died, the soul has material life only so long as some of the living give attention to it.”  
“That is why ghosts like to scare people!”   
“Exactly! They trick the living into feeding them by throwing off some of their life-force as energy! The Maiar know how to reform into other bodies, and thus keep their spirits going forever. They use a body like a pair of shoes.”  
“How do you know all of this? Why are the Mysteries so simple when you explain them?”  
“I have a lot of time to think,” she confided, “And it does help to have a mother who likes to talk about such things.”

They wandered through a beautiful meadow, perfect in size and form, surrounded by small, silent fir trees, their branches making a privacy screen. Wildflowers grew in abundance, a sea of sweet smelling purple-blue, with the occasional white blossom. A flat rock sat off to the side, smooth and weathered into a comfortable seat; the granite glittered in the sunlight.  
“This is so beautiful,” he admired, “How does this keep happening?” he wondered aloud. “Where do all these perfect settings of natural beauty come from? I don’t recall seeing this here before.”  
“That is one of my powers,” she answered.   
“Are you sure you’re not the one who made the trees talk?” he asked.  
“I am not the one who did that,” she laughed. “That was the Valar or Nature’s own.”  
“I am astounded and amazed, as well as humbled,” he thought out loud.   
“Being with you makes me happy, so I create scenes of joy and comfort.”  
“But Luthien, I am truly worried about the day you find out that I am a simple man at best, and mortal as well, what about when I start to age…”  
She laughed again. “Do not worry about that, you are bound to me, and I to you, I have shared my immortality with you, and if you fall down a well I will fish you out!”  
“I would hope not to do that! But sometimes when I smoke pipe weed I get so slow I can barely lace up my boots.” He thought for a moment, “I feel that I should leave now, so that you would always remember me as a cheerful young man, lest you should see me someday as a bent and bearded old wizard…”  
“Love does not measure, it just gives; and it is how you stay alive, even after you’re gone.”  
“I do not know what I think. That’s why I am worried, because there is so much that I do not know or understand. But you have a chance for better than this. You are immortal, and that is a rare and wondrous thing, not a gift to be lightly cast aside. You can enjoy my lifetime without losing anything. I do not understand why you feel you must give something so precious away just for the pleasure of my company.”  
“I have seen much of the future as well as the past, and the worlds both beyond and away and there is as of yet no reason for you to feel sad. These are the early years, wild and green with the first blush of youth and good growing things. We are free to do as we please, and we shall always remember this time with a rosy glow, when we look back many years from now, from beyond the trials and the shadows. There will come a time when we have greater responsibilities, and those will be the golden years of our lives, and even the setting sun of mortality has a rising the next day. There are also some dark places in between. Events must play themselves out, and things happen when it is time for them to happen. Do you trust me?”  
“Of course, I just freely admit that I don’t understand. I only wish for you to be sure. Do not throw your life away on a passing fancy! Someday, I will be gone, that is a certainty, but perhaps you will have other lives and other loves. I will remain a memory, and at last only a fading wraith you visit only rarely in the Dreamworld, another ghost among the ruins.”  
“You will understand as it all unfolds,” she said, and then smiled, “I won’t spoil it for you by telling you how it ends.”  
“There is no argument for that, but now I’m curious. I have had visions, especially after smoking your pipe! Many of them were very disturbing.”  
“Nor do I have any argument for that, so let us cross those bridges when we come to them, and not borrow problems from the future.”

He had drawn something lovely in the sand, and intricate pattern of whirlpool like swirls and wave patterns beside the stream, and he wanted to find a song to go with it:

I drew a heart of dirt  
Then I wrote your name upon it  
I would have written a sonnet  
But I could not do it…

He looked up to see her laughing merrily, her gray eyes twinkling with delight. “You had me with heart of dirt,” she told him with a kiss. “I think it is wonderful, and it is the thoughts it represents that are the most important thing. To think, in all of life, I might have missed this! A poorer life it would have been, beyond all doubt.”  
“Perhaps it is pointless for me to even attempt to learn sorcery; I have trouble with the basic songs.”  
“Few ever do learn it; would it still be daunting and mysterious if everyone could cast spells? Do not feel bad about it; no one is good at everything. You should see me with a sword! I am more danger to myself than the enemy! My weapons are my voice and magic. Even my magic is through my voice.” She whispered in his ear, “When I have a sore throat I cannot do anything!”  
“Then maybe you should stop smoking.”  
“No, we will not be doing that.”  
“Then you’ll have to learn to use a sword, or at least a bow,” Beren said. “This just won’t do, for the reasons you already stated.”  
“If you want to teach me, then I shall learn, but mostly just to be with you. I have very little interest in weapons.”  
“I have a profound interest in teaching you to defend yourself,” he said. “We can start today.”   
“Beren, you are the most practical person I have ever known,” she stated.  
He blushed for a moment, and appeared truly flattered and pleased, “Why thank you.”  
She shook her head and laughed, “I tell you I love and that you are incredibly handsome and I would remain with you always, and you doubt me. But when I notice your penchant to apply useful things in a timely manner, you are thrilled.”  
“Yes, I am,” he smiled. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me. Thank you, I’m practical,” he thrilled to himself.  
“What if I told you that you were also the most efficient person I had ever met?”  
“I would be even more thrilled,” he said with a smile.  
“Perhaps it is some strange gift of Men,” she surmised with a quick laugh. “Elves rarely do anything quickly, unless it involves orcs or fire.”  
“Be that as it may, you’ll not distract me from teaching you how to defend yourself the old-fashioned way, with bow and sword, just in case the day comes when you cannot rely wholly upon magic.”  
“You are becoming immune to my charm spells.”  
He showed her how to use his bow, which was too large for her, and his sword, which was too awkward and heavy. “You need properly sized weapons,” he concluded. “But I do not have any, nor can they be manufactured from sticks and stones.”  
“Then we must return to Menegroth, and fetch some from the armory,” she told him. Then she brightened up, as if having an epiphany. “Beren, you must meet my mother,” Luthien said excitedly. Being both curious and agreeable, he went along with her, and followed her through the streets of the Hidden Kingdom, the white stone and wooden houses along tree-lined streets. The whole of Doriath was a garden, some of the trees so large they held multiple houses. Some houses there were in Halfling fashion, so that no space was wasted, and every underground home had gardens and blossoms growing upon it, and fruited vines. Hanging baskets of berries and blooms hung everywhere, some dangling down to the earth, where the greenery tried to escape and run wild, establishing itself in every crack or crevice. Beren felt odd, walking along a path that was atop someone’s home. Elves smiled and stared, Beren nodded in return. Luthien told him that the greatest part of the city was yet underground, and the mineral and crystal formations below were as wondrous as the gardens above. The dwarves undertook long journeys to gaze upon it in wonder. She showed him the doors, and said they would go there soon, leading him through the city while other elves wondered at the sight, and she led him to a lovely garden, beyond the imaginations of most men and some elves. Rolling, verdant green hills full of blooming, fruiting trees, winding paths between them, which they followed under curtains of purple and white flowers flowing from the tree branches, and through rose arbors of pink and white, while birds sang in the trees and butterflies flitted past. It was a garden of creation, a perfect place for souls to be healed and lovers to pledge their bliss forever. Beren looked around in wonder and awe at the beauty before him.   
“Mother! I have found him, the one I have sought!” Luthien cried.  
A woman turned around, appearing as though she had been invisible, and Beren startled and took a breath. Then he bowed low, knowing that before him was a living goddess in the mortal realm. Melian was a Maia, of the race of the eternal spirits. She had once dwelt in the gardens of Lorien, and among all people there were none more beautiful than Melian, nor more wise, nor more skilled in songs of enchantment. It is told that the Valar would leave their works, and the birds of Valinor their mirth, that the bells of Valmar were silent and the fountains cease to flow when at the mingling of the lights Melian sang in Lorien. Nightingales were always with her, and she taught them their song; and she loved the deep shadows of the great trees. She was akin before the World was made to Yavanna herself; and in that time when the Quendi awoke beside the waters of Cuivienen she departed from Valinor and came to the Hither Lands, and there she filled the silence of Middle Earth before the dawn with her voice and the voices of her birds. She was the goddess of beauty, song, and gardens. Beren knew all of this immediately upon seeing her face.  
“Arise, young man,” the lady smiled kindly. “No one can have a conversation of any value in that position!”  
Beren stood up, realizing he had nothing to fear from Luthien’s mother. The spell that protected the realm was a feeling of doom and dread for outsiders, for her daughter’s friend there would be welcome. The young man smiled and said, “I am deeply honored and very glad to meet you.”  
“As am I, son of Barahir,” the goddess smiled, “You are every bit as handsome as Luthien said you were, and Luthien has been lonely for a long time. I can find joy alone with only the earth and sky, tending all elemental and growing things, but she is a living creature, and needs others around her. You have no idea the tales of sadness and loneliness I have listened to. Now that you are here, I have peace and quiet, we are a joy in the sight of one another.” At this, Beren smiled, and knowing that he stood in the presence of a goddess, and felt no fear, but rather the sensation that things were just as they should be.  
He spoke, “Lady of Doriath, men and elves perish in the woods outside your realm, trying to find the door.” He wondered then if he had said something foolish and inappropriate, but remembering the bones he had found, felt it necessary to point out.  
“I am working on that,” Melian answered. “It is a spell of fire and iron, meant to foil the hordes of evil, as the will of Sauron and his sorcery battles always with mine, and sometimes the innocent are ensnared. I am busily making the rabbit holes needed by such as you. I know the wastage of life bothers you, as it does Luthien, and try to be comforted by the thought that everything happens for a reason.”  
“How does it all work?” Beren asked suddenly. Being in her presence was no longer intimidating, but rather a chance to ask all of the questions he had ever wondered silently to himself.  
“What part exactly?” she inquired.  
“Well, the whole of life and death, elves living near immortal lives and mortal men dying after a scant few hundred years. Why did the gods make it so?”  
Melian smiled. “No, it does not seem fair, not from your current viewpoint, but most elves do not live that long, at least not in Middle Earth. This land is dangerous, and many of the elves are slain by orcs and other fell beasts upon the road. In Valinor, their lives are very much extended, as they walk amongst the works of the Valar, as those of your people are by living with the Elves. Indeed, in Valinor there are no predators,” she smiled knowingly at Beren, who smiled, knowing exactly what it felt like to be hunted. “The elves fear death just as much as the Edain, and seeing Men die frightened them enough to believe that it could not, would not, happen to them. Some of the dead you saw were parts of another person. Maiar spirits can exist in more than one place, at more than one time. I am many people that you might meet. I am the birds and animals in the forest, now and in the past, ever vigilant.”  
“Can you see out all of their eyes at once?” Beren exclaimed in surprise.  
“I am them,” Melian explained patiently. “I see, hear and feel them all; I think all their lives at once.”  
“You must be awfully busy,” Beren said in awe, while Luthien giggled into her hand.  
Melian laughed, “Do not worry about it; I will not attempt more than I know I can do. It really is a question of concentration. If you are aware, you will return again, if you wish it, and I will help you.”  
“Return again?” he asked. “How? How does it all work? Neither my people nor the Sea Elves ever spoke of this.”  
“Rebirth is not uncommon, indeed it happens frequently. It is easiest for human men to be reborn, as they are not as wedded to their bodies as many elves can be, and many of the Elder Race linger as spirits within the Halls of Mandos. Neither are the races as separate as many believe; the choice of what to be reborn as is up to the individual spirit and the will of the Valar. Men are normally reborn as men because it is what they know, and what their friends and loved ones are, although they could return as an elf or any other creature. Most elves have spent at least one lifetime as an animal that walks about on four legs, or perhaps on wings. The spirit must have knowledge and guidance in order to make a choice. Without great care, it becomes random. Do you not remember your last life among the Noldor, or your very first life as a bird? Review them all from the depths of your memory.”  
He flashed back to the beginning of the world, and he was hopping about upon a branch, looking back and forth, and waiting for a pleasant wind to soar from while listening to the ancient songs of Melian. Then he drew his elven bow to shoot an orc, and was struck from behind. His head instantly ached. Then his first life as a mortal man, he was listening to a golden haired elf speaking. Beren then remembered that this elf spoke endlessly; a smile on his lips and in his amethyst-blue eyes. Then the scene changed inexplicably, and the fair face was speaking sorrowful words; eyes rimmed with tears. The strangely familiar face faded out, to be replaced by Luthien’s lovely smile, and his vision was over. “Do all spirits live forever?” he asked.  
“No, many fade. Without a body for energy, or the life force of others to drain, a spirit will fade and disappear.”  
“Where do spirits come from? How are new spirits created?”  
“The same way new physical bodies are created, they sometimes bud off of the mother’s spirit, if it is strong enough, or the father’s spirit, if not then a wandering spirit will find a home, and very rarely, there is a person with no soul. Conditions are rare that neither parent’s soul is strong enough to create another soul, nor that there is not a disembodied spirit floating nearby; and the child is born without the spark of light or consciousness. The dead you saw in the forest are now no longer a part of me, they are free to fly or fade on their own.”  
“I think I have met people with no souls,” Beren though aloud. “What about orcs? Do they have souls?”  
“Some of them possess spirits, commonly evil ones, and their spirits die after one life, and many are truly soulless, as their women rarely have enough heart and soul to make another. They do not love themselves, let alone anyone else. They throw their babies into pits so that they might learn to fight over meat. That is not the act of a soulful mother.”  
“And the dwarves?” Beren asked.  
“They have strong, tough souls. Gruff and often disgruntled ones, but yes, their spirits are real enough and a dwarf is proud to die and for his soul to melt back into the collective of dwarven consciousness. Each dwarven soul is unique, and they exist in a massive group unconsciousness by the grace of Aule, apart from men and elves.”  
Beren pondered this for a moment, and then thought of the little people. “What of the little people, the Halflings and gnomes? I am sure they have souls, but are they apart from us?”  
“Almost always, since they are shy and try to avoid the doings of men and elves. The gnomes and Halflings are on the whole a good and kind people, and have very pleasant souls. They often spend generations as furry little hibernating animals in between incarnations of humanoid form, and they like to return again and again in the same family lines, and in the same places. They love the lands they live in, and are bonded to it.”  
“Oh!” he exclaimed, almost seeing the vastness of eternity, then suddenly wondering, “What about Luthien?”  
“To create another goddess has drawn off most of my power, and left me weakened, I am more limited in scope and form than I would normally be. My spells are shorter and fainter than they used to be, but I will regain my strength by working with the earth and all growing things.” There was a moment where their eyes met, and they both knew that Luthien was a new soul, a powerful one, and a powerful force for good, but an untried and as yet untested one. Patience and strength would be his greatest assets.  
The young Numenorean nodded, accepting the challenge, understanding and sympathizing with the effort of creation and especially of sacrifice and hard work, and then admitted, “I still do not understand how it all works. There is so much to learn or to remember, and I am not sure how much is my own wishful thinking.”  
“There is nothing wrong with that, and you have time to learn. Do you remember the lifetimes you spent as a bird?” Beren looked serious as he struggled to recall the differences between his imagination and memories of soaring as an eagle.  
Luthien then asked, “Mother, I have found my beloved. When might I wed him?”  
“Have you asked him?” Melian laughed, “Or did you simply inform him? Worse yet, is this the first he has heard of it?” She could tell by the look on Beren’s face that it was so. “Do you remember what some of the elves, specifically your father, think of elven women who have married much younger, mortal men?”  
“Yes, they are looked at askance by the other elves, especially those who do not understand the hidden curve of the life cycle, and eventually they are forced to move away by the king’s disapproval.” She paused for a moment and continued her thoughts. “I do not care what others think, I never have. Nor does it matter to me where we live. I can create that which we require, and others are not necessary.”  
Beren stared and Melian laughed. “I would be a hypocrite indeed to criticize you, nor do I disapprove, but I merely point out that the road is long and full of thorny branches.”  
Chin in hand and immersed in thought, Beren was silent, but Luthien again spoke, “I am trying to teach him magic, but he seems to know only childhood rhymes, and he thinks I should learn to use a bow instead.”   
This made Melian smile for a moment, and then sigh sadly, for reasons neither of the other two understood, and then she answered, “The weapons you need are in the armory, and he will learn to sing at a time unlooked-for, and he will learn magic best in the silence of the buck in the meadow, and the stalking puma. He has not sung magic since his first lives as a bird.”  
“Thank you, Mother. We will go find the weapons.”  
“Be careful, and let Beren choose his own bow and sword. The silver arrows are in the closet with the silver handle.”  
“Thank you for your blessing, and for explaining everything to me,” Beren said, bowing his head.  
“You are very welcome, son of Barahir, use your time well.” So saying, she went back to her work, and Luthien pulled him away and off to the palace armory, where they found wondrous weapons of fine and ancient make.  
Luthien found the weapons meant for her immediately; they were almost child-sized and wrought with white and blue gems, the blade of the sword mithril and razor sharp. She picked them up in delight. “Oh, I like these!” she exclaimed. Since Melian had given him permission to choose a sword and bow of his own, he looked around, and after discovering the silver tipped arrows, which he knew would be effective against werebeasts and all of the undead, found a great longbow, that felt perfect in his hands. Pulling on it, he was amazed at the strength and variety of materials in its construction, the topmost layer being fine leather embossed and embroidered with mithril and silver. He nodded appreciatively, and having found the bow, he searched closet after rack, searching for its’ mate. Finally, he found the sword; wrought of silver, mithril and steel, with soft leather padding on the handle. It glittered in the light of moon or sun, and possessed the ability to heal its wielder.   
They left Doriath in delight, returning to Beren’s rustic camp, and he spent the rest of the afternoon and evening teaching her the basics of archery and swordsmanship. Luthien quickly became bored, but then Beren laughed and said, “If I have to forsake meat and fish and instead eat mushrooms, you have to learn how to shoot a bow!” Knowing that both Beren and Melian wanted her to learn, and knowing it was for her own benefit, Luthien spent many tedious hours learning to defend herself against foes and shoot them from afar. He spoke on and on of aiming and precision.   
Then, becoming so bored her spirit began to wander away from her body, she said to Beren, “Touch my hand.”  
“That won’t work Luthien; I will not let you distract me, you have to keep using your sword!”  
“I am done with swords for the moment, let me show you something.” So saying, she vanished utterly, becoming only a wisp of smoke on the grass.”  
“Luthien?” Beren looked around, wondering what she had done. Then she reappeared, smiling seductively.  
“What did you just do?” he asked.  
“I melded with the earth. Take my hand, and I will meld with you.”  
“Oh, I don’t know about that, I like my body just like it is…” he was saying as she held his hand, and then he had the most wondrous sensation, of being like a tree’s roots, embedded in the earth, ancient and content. There he would have been content to stay, but she changed them back into people.  
“What did you think?”  
“I could spend a long time doing that,” he said thoughtfully.  
“You try it by yourself, this time.”  
Instead of arguing, he just remembered the wonderful feeling of being at one with the earth, and vanished himself. She waited for a minute, wondering if she should meld herself and fetch him, when he reappeared. “I remembered to return,” he said wisely, “Although it was difficult, as I found I was happy there.”  
“You are a natural,” she said admiringly. “See, you can do magic!”  
“Only if it does not involve singing,” he admitted. “Teach me only silent magic, the ways of the forest, beasts, and birds.”   
“So I will,” she said. “Spells of earth and invisibility are inherently silent, and so I will teach you those.”  
“Invisibility?” he said with a smile. “That would be wonderfully useful and practical. Teach me! We can leave off of sword practice for today if you teach me that skill.”  
She laughed, “As you wish, so shall it be done.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 4  
Thingol and Finrod Felagund

 

But Daeron the minstrel also loved Luthien, and he espied her meetings with Beren, and betrayed them to Thingol. Then the King was filled with anger, for Luthien he loved above all things, setting her above all the princes of the Elves; whereas mortal men he did not even take into his service. Therefore he spoke in grief and amazement to Luthien, but she would reveal nothing, until he swore an oath to her that he would neither slay Beren nor imprison him. As still she would tell him nothing, he sent his servants to lay hands on him and lead him to Menegroth as a malefactor; and Luthien heard them in their arrogance; laughing and discussing their intent. So forestalling them she decided to lead Beren herself before the throne of Thingol, as if he were an honored guest.   
She found him at his campsite, which had become far more comfortable than rustic, as she had brought soft blankets and rainproof sheeting, pillows and several changes of clothes. In addition to his canteen, she had brought him pans and utensils, with pretty dishes for them to eat off of, as well as dainty bits from the palace kitchens. He was washing the stew pot in the river, busily scrubbing the burnt spots with sand and a rag when she found him. He looked up and noticed her worried expression. “What is it?” he asked.  
“My father has sent guards to waylay you, but I shall take you there myself,” she said, and he felt again that old dread that had haunted him during their first weeks together, before he had gained the blessings of Luthien’s mother. In his relief and joy, he had all but forgotten her father. A shadow fell across his face as he rose from the river, put away the dishes, and took up the weapons Melian had authorized him to take. He quickly straightened his hair, filled his canteen, and then followed Luthien back to Doriath. Instead of taking the bright roads through the main streets to the palace, they went by way of underground service bays and potting sheds. It was almost unknown except for Melian and her assistants who cleaned tools or hauled wheelbarrows full of spent flowers, fallen leaves and pruned branches. Beren wondered if he could ever find his way back on his own. Finally, they came to the palace through the back ways that the servants used, and she led him around to the main entrance, and arm in arm they walked into the great hall of Menegroth, where the king sat upon his throne of mithril and gold, a circlet of leaves wrought from various metals upon his head. They bowed low, and waited for him to speak.  
Then Thingol looked upon Beren in scorn and anger; but Melian was silent. “Who are you,” said the King, “That come hither as a thief, and unbidden dare to approach my throne?”  
But Beren being filled with dread, for the splendor of Menegroth and the majesty of Thingol were very great, answered nothing. Therefore Luthien spoke, and said: “He is Beren son of Barahir, lord of Men, mighty foe of Morgoth, the tale of whose deeds has become a song even among the Elves.”  
“Let Beren speak!” said Thingol, “What would you here, unhappy mortal, and for what cause have you left your own land to enter this, which is forbidden to such as you? Can you show reason why my power should not be laid on you in heavy punishment for your insolence and folly?”  
Then Beren looking up beheld the eyes of Luthien, and his glance went also to the face of Melian; and it seemed to him that words were put into his mouth. Fear left him, and the pride of the eldest house of Men returned to him; and he said: “My fate, O King, led me hither, through perils such as few even of the Elves would dare. And here I have found what I sought not indeed, but finding I would possess for ever. For it is above all gold and silver, and beyond all jewels. Neither rock, nor steel, nor fires of Sauron, nor the watery doom of Morgoth, nor all the powers of the Elf-kingdoms, shall keep from me the treasure that I desire. For Luthien your daughter is the fairest of all the Children of the World.”  
Then silence fell upon the hall, for those that stood there were astounded and afraid, and they thought that Beren would be slain. But Thingol spoke slowly, saying, “Death you have earned with these words; and death you should find suddenly, had I not sworn an oath in haste; of which I repent, baseborn mortal, who in the realm of Morgoth has learnt to creep in secret as his spies and thralls.”  
Then Beren answered: “Death you can give me earned or unearned; but the names I will not take from you of baseborn, nor spy, nor thrall. By the ring of Felagund, which he gave to Barahir my father, on the battlefield of the North, my house has not earned such names from any Elf, be he king or no.”  
His words were proud, and all eyes looked upon the ring; for he held it now aloft, and the green jewels gleamed there that the Noldor had devised in Valinor. For this ring was like two twin serpents, whose eyes were emeralds, and their heads met beneath a crown of golden flowers, that the one upheld and the other devoured; that was the badge of Finarfin and his house. Then Melian leaned to Thingol’s side, and in whispered counsel bade him to forgo his wrath. “For not by you,” she said, “Shall Beren be slain and far and free does his fate lead him in the end, yet it is wound with yours. Take heed!”   
But Thingol looked in silence upon Luthien; and he thought in his heart: “Unhappy Men, children of little lords and brief kings, shall such as these lay hands upon you, and yet live?” Then breaking the silence he said: “A stirring oration, son of Barahir, and I see the ring, and I perceive that you are proud, and deem yourself mighty. But a father’s deeds, even had his service been rendered unto me, avail not to win the daughter of Thingol and Melian. See now! I too desire a treasure that is withheld, for rock and steel and depths of Morgoth the jewel that I would possess against all the powers of the Elf-kingdoms. Yet I hear you say that bonds such as these do not daunt you. Go your way therefore! Bring to me in your hand a Silmaril from Morgoth’s crown; and then, if she will, Luthien may set her hand in yours. Then you shall have my jewel; and though the fate of Arda lie within the Silmarils, yet you shall hold me generous.”  
Thus he wrought the doom of Doriath, and was ensnared within the curse of Mandos. And those that heard these words perceived that Thingol would save his oath, and yet send Beren to his death; for they knew that not all the power of the Noldor, before the Siege was broken, had availed even to see from afar the shining Silmarils of Feanor. For they were set in the Iron Crown, and treasured in Angband above all wealth; and evil creatures were about them, and countless swords, and strong bars, and unassailable walls, and the dark majesty of Morgoth.  
But Beren laughed. “For little price,” he said, “Do Elven-kings sell their daughters; for gems, and things made by craft. But if this be your will, Thingol, I will perform it. And when we meet again my hand shall hold a Silmaril from the Iron Crown; for you have not looked the last upon Beren son of Barahir.”  
Then he looked into the eyes of Melian, who spoke not; and bowing before Thingol and Melian he put aside the guards about him, and departed the presence of the king, and he bade farewell to Luthien Tinuviel. She walked to the doors of the great hall with him, then out into the gardens, where they were quiet for a moment, thinking about the gravity of their situation, until Beren shook his head and said, “Your father certainly lays some heavy tasks on people,” and Luthien laughed, despite the dire news she had just received.  
Then at last Melian spoke and she said to Thingol: “O King, you have devised cunning counsel. But if my eyes have not lost their sight, it is ill for you, whether Beren fail in his errand, or achieve it, for you have doomed either your daughter, or yourself. And now is Doriath drawn within the fate of a mightier realm. For now Menegroth is drawn into the Curse of Mandos.”  
But Thingol answered: “I sell not to Elves or Men those whom I love and cherish above all treasure. And if there were hope or fear that Beren should come ever back alive to Menegroth, he should not have looked again upon the light of heaven, though I had sworn it.”  
But Luthien was silent, and from that hour she sang not again in Doriath. A brooding silence fell upon the woods, and the shadows lengthened in the kingdom of Thingol.  
Beren left the city, making his way to the campsite he and Luthien always met one another at, and waited for her. She appeared at dawn the next day. “Beren!” she called. “I have little time, so here is what we shall do. In disguise we shall pass unnoticed into the Realm of Death, and there steal a Silmaril and quickly return home!”  
“In disguise would be the only way, I agree,” Beren said, “But I see many flaws in this plan.”  
“Sorcery, ancient and arcane, will be necessary,” she told him. “Come with me, there are enchantments of old. We will require all the assistance we can devise,” she said, “This is a cloak of invisibility, I will make another for myself before we approach Angband. And take with you now as many silver arrows as you can.” She then removed her necklace, and put it around his neck, and told him, “Keep this always around your neck and think of me often, the gem emits light when you order it to, and it leaves your hands free for fighting.” She embraced him again, fastening the cloak around him, and took him then back to the city, and packed him a bag, in which she put lembas and potions of healing. “We cannot be seen together,” she told him, “But I shall be along with you shortly. Wait for me at the spring!”  
Beren held her tightly, and they told each other once again of their love, and feeling that he was setting off to his doom, Beren felt heavy of heart, although Luthien left him in the kitchens to pack, and continued to devise plans. “Perhaps there are others who will help us,” he wondered aloud. It was then that the spies of Thingol noticed them, and scurried back to the King.  
Aghast that she should have led the miserable mortal boy back into Menegroth, Thingol went to remove the human and admonish Luthien himself. His patience was not infinite, as Melian’s was, and it had been sorely tested already, and he confronted them in the kitchens. “How dare you return here?” he demanded of Beren.  
“I required food and water for the journey,” he explained.  
“And traveling gear for two?” the King raged, holding up two cups and plates.  
Luthien jumped in. “I will not darken your door with my betrothed.”  
“Betrothed!” Thingol exclaimed in disgust. “I have had enough! He will leave and never return, whether to the fires of Sauron, to die in the woods, or to the bottom of the sea in the realm of Morgoth, I care not, and you will marry suitably!”  
“I know whom I love, I love Beren, and I will marry him,” she told him in a tone of utter finality.  
“No you will not! I will find someone suitable, and quickly.” So saying, he left her, ignoring everything else she said, and finding his guards, told them to seize Beren and throw him out the city gates. Thinking the guards might feel sorry for him and let him stop for a cup of wine or talk to Melian, Thingol followed them to the gates, and ordering the guards to give him a firm toss, shouted after him, “Be gone with you, mortal man, and stay out!” Then the king turned and spoke to himself, “And good riddance to bad news.” So saying the gates were slammed shut behind him, and Beren stood there for a few minutes, hoping Melian or one of the other elves might speak to him, when the king himself poured a bucket of water on him from upon the walls. “Begone! The next bucket will be hot oil!”  
To Thingol’s surprise, the boy looked at him with a sad, pitiful expression, and then vanished completely. The King stared at the spot where he had vanished, and then wondered mightily.   
It had occurred to Beren as he stood outside the city gates, a feeling of darkness and loss once again upon him, that Thingol was being unreasonably cruel, and that no one was right, and everyone was doing something wrong. He should not be with such a wonderful woman; nor should Luthien be pursuing such a mortal, inadequate and ever lagging behind. His youth would fade, and he would vanish like a wizened cricket upon the cold winds. But they would be the fell winds of death, not merely winter. It was in such sadness that he threw the cloak around him to disguise himself, and inadvertently had cast his first real vanishing spell, and found himself back in the forest, but still soaking wet. He went to the wildflower meadow of Luthien’s creation, remembering happiness; a chilled hole of emptiness filling his heart. The splendor of the forest glen only served to magnify his loss. There was no beauty or joy in it without her. He felt grateful then to be alone with his grief, without prying eyes. He sat upon the silent stone, the trees quiet as well, as if in mourning. At last he let his grief slide down into his feet and into the earth, and so he then melded with it to wait, perhaps forever.   
For several weeks he remained thus, and still Luthien came not. Then upon the first day of the new moon, as he lay in the meadow, gone as surely as if dead, his mind began to work again, and in the first pink light of dawn; when the stars were still above; he reformed, and walked back to where he had left his camp. Gathering up what was left of his things, animals having eaten the food and made a mess, he resolved once more to wait.  
He felt more alone than he ever had before, and while searching for Luthien’s magic hot spring, found his way out of the woods, and realized that Luthien’s magic was lovely in sight and sound, in being and doing, while his skills were silent as the forest as night, or the heavy earth. She had taught him much, but he could not reach the power through song, only by letting the magical force flow up from the earth and emanate out through him when the moment was right. His mind was full of thoughts and wonder as he walked, and while he waited for Luthien for several weeks, when she came not, his heart was filled with sadness and doubt, until finally, using his own best judgment, turned his feet towards Nargothrond, where ruled King Felagund, to whom his father had been good friends.  
Beren passed through the lands around Doriath unhindered, and came at length to the region of the Twilight Mere, and the Fens of Sirion; and leaving Thingol’s land he climbed the hills above the Falls of Sirion, where the river plunged underground with great noise. Thence he looked westward, and through the mist and rains that lay upon those hills he saw Talath Dirnen, the Guarded Plain, stretching between Sirion and Narog; and beyond he descried afar the highlands of Taur-en-Faroth that arose above Nargothrond. And being destitute, without hope or counsel, he turned his feet thither.  
Upon all that plain the Elves of Nargothrond kept unceasing watch; and every hill upon its borders was crowned with hidden towers, and through all its woods and fields archers ranged secretly and with great craft. Their arrows were sure and deadly, and nothing crept there against their will. Therefore, ere Beren had come far upon his road, they were aware of him, and his death was nigh. But knowing his danger, he removed the magic cloak of invisibility that they might see him, and so they might know him, he held ever aloft the ring of Felagund; and though he saw no living thing, because of the stealth of the hunters, he felt that he was watched, and cried often aloud; “I am Beren son of Barahir, friend of Felagund. Take me to the King!”  
Therefore the hunters slew him not, but assembling they waylaid him, and commanded him to halt. But seeing the ring they bowed graciously before him, though he was in evil plight, wild and wayworn; and they led him northward and westward, going by night lest their paths should be revealed. For at that time there was no ford or bridge over the torrent of Narog before the gates of Nargothrond; but further to the north, where Ginglith joined Narog, the flood was less, and crossing there and turning again southward the Elves led Beren under the light of the moon to the dark gates of their hidden halls.  
Thus Beren came before King Finrod Felagund, who was dressed in soft grays and green, a crown of leaves woven into his hair, and Felagund knew him, needing no ring to remind him of the kin of Beor and of Barahir. In Beren he saw there Beor; as the young man kneeled politely before the throne of the Elf King, and great was his joy when he realized the spirit of his beloved friend had returned again to this earth, and his heart leapt. He greeted him warmly, but not too familiarly, as he did not wish to spook Beren; who as yet had no memory of their great friendship, and how Felagund’s heart had been broken at Beor’s death.   
“Your Majesty,” Beren began, recognizing the blond elf from the vision whilst speaking with Melian.  
“Call me Felagund, as your forefathers did,” the elf smiled, once again gazing upon those same bright gray eyes. “No one wants a name like Finrod. Come walk with me, and tell me of your travels and what brings you to Nargothrond.”   
“My father was a friend of yours,” Beren said, smiling back at this kind, fair king; so different from Thingol as to be total opposites, “And told me stories of the great battles.” Staring almost rudely, he not only recognized the elf’s eyes from his vision, but knew him well, and quelled tears of joy, for only now did he know how much he had missed him. For here was the blond elf who talked straight through death and waited for his friend to return to continue the conversation.   
“For where is he now?” the sweet voice, filled with concern inquired. “I would very much like to speak with him again.”  
“That is a sad tale, and not one I would tell aloud for casual ears.” So saying, behind closed doors they sat, and Beren told of the death of Barahir. “He fell, for he would not forsake Dorthinion, and there Morgoth pursued him to the death, until at last there remained to him only twelve companions. One of them was ambushed alone, and the secret hiding place of my father was revealed by trickery or torture. Morgoth drew his net around it, and the orcs came in the still hours before dawn and surprised the Men of Dorthonion and slew them all, save one, for I was far afield on a scouting mission when the encampment was taken. I dreamt terrible dreams that night, and when I awoke I immediately returned, and discovered them all dead. I built a cairn for my father, and then pursued the orcs. I attacked them unawares, as they had done to us, and seeing the foul orc captain tossing about my father’s hand with the ring upon it, I slew those closest, including the captain, and taking the hand, I vanished thenceforth into the forest, and they were still too surprised to pursue me. Thus it is that I am now the keeper of this ring, although it belongs to you. Do you wish for its return?”  
“No, keep it. It grieves me deeply to learn that he is dead, for he saved me, at great risk to himself, during the Siege of Angband. I was cut off from my people and surrounded with only a small company in the Fen of Serech; and I would have been taken or slain, but Barahir came up with the bravest of his men and rescued me, making a wall of spears, and they cut their way out of the battle with great loss. Thus I narrowly escaped death, and upon returning to Nargothrond, I swore an oath of abiding friendship and aid in every need to Barahir and all his kin, and in token of this vow I gave to him that ring. By right and by my continued friendship and gratitude, it is yours.”   
They sat together then in silence, until Felagund asked, “What then happened to you, after you had slain the orcs?”  
“Aimless and unhappy, I wandered for days and nights along a very evil road, it was then that I crossed through Tol Gurgaroth,” he paused for a moment, “Of my journeys the memory is very dark and evil.” He then told Felagund of the monstrous things he had beheld, and the elf nodded.   
“I know of that which you saw, for I have seen them too, both in dream and in true sight. Also, I have battled them both above the water, and below. It was hundreds of years ago, under a blood red sky and a churning ocean, when evil sought to cover the land and make it a swamp for the bulge-eyed lizard men, and to destroy those who would not be food or slaves for them. They demanded hideous rituals and sacrifices, stealing our people to sacrifice them under the moon when it glowed red, to their evil god, to Morgoth.  
“You have seen them?” Beren asked, remembering the hideous sights upon the Mount of Gorgoroth, “When?”  
“Beor and I fought them, slaying them with silver tipped arrows, for they cannot abide it, and any contact with it causes them great pain. We slew as many as we could, aiding our distant kin the Sea-Elves in their never ending battle with them. My father’s brother, Fingolfin fought with Morgoth in his incarnation of an upright being. When Fingolfin heard that Dorthonion was lost and the sons of Finarfin overthrown and that the sons of Feanor were driven from their lands, it seemed to him that he beheld the utter ruin of the Noldor, and the defeat beyond redress of all their houses; and he was so filled with wrath and despair he mounted upon Rochallor his great horse and rode forth alone, and none might restrain him, try as we might to reason with him. He passed over Dor-nu-Fauglith like a wind amid the dust, and all that beheld his onset fled in amazement, thinking that Orome himself had come: for a great madness of rage was upon him, so that his eyes shone like the eyes of the Valar. Thus he came to Angband’s gates, and he sounded his horn, and smote once more upon the great doors of stone and iron, and challenged Morgoth to come forth to single combat. And Morgoth came.  
That was the last time in those wars that he passed the doors of his stronghold, and it is said that he took not the challenge willingly; for though his might was greatest of all things in this world, alone of the Valar he knew fear. But he could not now deny the challenge before the face of his captains; for the rocks rang with the shrill music of Fingolfin’s horn, and his voice came keen and clear down into the depths of Angband; and Fingolfin named Morgoth craven, and lord of slaves. Therefore Morgoth came, in the form of a giant man, climbing slowly from his subterranean throne, and the rumble of his feet was like thunder underground. And he issued forth clad in black armor; and he stood before the King like a tower, iron-crowned, and his vast shield, sable unblazoned, cast a shadow over him like a stormcloud. But Fingolfin gleamed beneath it as a star; for his mail was overlaid with silver and mithril, and his blue shield was set with crystals; and he drew his sword Ringil, that glittered like ice.   
Then Morgoth hurled aloft Grond, the Hammer of the Underworld, and swung it down like a bolt of thunder. But Fingolfin sprang aside, and Grond rent a might pit in the earth, whence smoke and fire darted. Many times Morgoth attempted to smite him, and each time Fingolfin leaped away, as a lightning shoots from under a dark cloud; and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds, and seven times Morgoth gave a cry of anguish, wherein the hosts of Angband fell upon their faces in dismay, and the cries echoed in the Northlands.  
But at last Fingolfin grew weary, and Morgoth bore down his shield upon him. Thrice he was crushed to his knees, and thrice arose again and bore up his broken shield and stricken helm. But the earth was all rent and pitted about him, and he stumbled and fell backward before the feet of Morgoth; and Morgoth set his left foot upon his neck, and the weight of it was like a fallen hill. Yet with his last and desperate stroke Fingolfin hewed Morgoth’s foot with Ringil, and the salty black blood gushed forth, filling the pits of Grond.   
Thus died Fingolfin, High King of the Noldor, most proud and valiant of the Elven-kings of old. The orcs made no boast of that duel at the gate; neither do the Elves sing of it, for their sorrow is too deep, though it is written about at great length.” They sat together in silence for a few minutes, while Beren thought long upon the story he had just heard. “Thus,” Felagund continued, “I fear Morgoth has learned something from this, and sleeps in an undersea grotto, speaking through the minds and mouths of his minions and thralls. His is a watery world of taint and death, where the living dare not go. Sauron is the chiefest of his servants, the craftiest and most dangerous. Yet even he does not go too near Morgoth, though perhaps this is because the elemental form of Sauron is fire, creator and destroyer, and that of Morgoth is water, the deepest and most ancient of the elements, that Sauron might never creep up and destroy his master.”  
“Thus he protects himself from his own servants,” Beren thought aloud. “So it is I have heard with evil creatures. They cannot trust one another. Yet, if the Silmarils are made into an iron crown, must he not take a man’s form to wear it?”  
“You are correct, and such is the great, corrupting power of greed for the Silmarils, that Morgoth would take vulnerable form to possess them, remaining in the form of an immense man, that he might have them always upon his person, save when he does take his natural form during rituals. Perhaps these things may yet be serving the Valar,” he pondered aloud. Great and long would be their conversations as it had once been before; in the days of old.   
“Their power must be very great,” Beren said thoughtfully, “From whence did they come and what is their make, that they possess such power?”  
“Their maker was Feanor, whose father wedded my mother, and he was the master of things wrought with his hands. As he pondered the light of the Trees, he thought to preserve their light and glory in imperishable form. Thus he began a long and secret labor, and he summoned all his lore, and his power, and his subtle skill; and at the end of all, he made the Silmarils.   
“As three great jewels they were in form. But not until the End, when Feanor shall return who perished ere the Sun was made, and sits now in the halls of Awaiting and comes no more among his kin; not until the Sun passes and the Moon falls, shall it be known of what substance they were made. Like the crystal of diamonds it appeared, and yet was more strong than adamant, so that no violence could mar it or break it within the Kingdom of Arda. Yet that crystal was to the Silmarils but as is the body to the Children of Iluvatar: the house of its inner fire; that is within it and yet in all parts of it, and is its life. And the inner fire of the Silmarils Feanor made of the blended light of the Trees of Valinor, which lives in them yet, though the Trees have long withered and shine no more, save in the world of dream. Therefore even in the darkness of the deepest treasury the Silmarils of their own radiance shone like the stars of Varda; and yet, as were they indeed living things, they rejoiced in light and received it and gave it back in hues more marvelous than before.   
“All who dwelt in Aman were filled with wonder and delight at the work of Feanor. And Varda hallowed the Silmarils, so that thereafter no mortal flesh, nor hands unclean, nor anything of evil will might touch them, but it was scorched and withered; and Mandos foretold that the fates of Arda; earth, sea, fire, and air, lay locked within them. The heart of Feanor was fast bound to these things that he himself had made.  
“Then Melkor, for that is what we called him then, since we knew him as a god of the sea, and as he could take a form fair to look upon and speak as do Men and Elves. We were honored to have him among us, back then. As one of the Valar, and a god of the sea, we bowed low when he deigned to come among us. Yet, he played us all false, telling us what we most wished to hear, and he lusted for the Silmarils, and the very memory of their radiance was a gnawing fire in his heart. From that time forth, inflamed by this desire, he sought ever more eagerly how he should destroy Feanor and end the friendship of the Valar with the Elves; but he dissembled his purposes with cunning, and nothing of his malice could yet be seen in the semblance that he wore. As a great prince he walked about, in raiment of iridescent raindrops and bearing a mithril trident of the sort favored by the sea gods of the ancient world. Wondrous he appeared, but evil was his intent. Long was he at work, and slow at first and barren was his labor. But he that sows lies in the end shall not lack of a harvest, and soon he may rest from the toil indeed while others reap and sow in his stead. Ever Melkor found some ears that would heed him, and some tongues that would enlarge what they had heard; and his lies passed from friend to friend, as secrets of which the knowledge proves the teller wise. Bitterly did the Noldor atone for the folly of their open ears in the days that followed after. For then were his most devout servants recruited, and of the Elves, some followed him of their own free will, and became the greatest of his shadow army, along with Sauron, the powerful Maiar fire spirit, who always and ever envied his master Melkor.   
When he saw that many leaned towards him, Melkor would often walk among them, and amid his fair words others were woven, so subtly that many who heard them believed in recollection that they arose from their own thought. Visions he would conjure in their hearts of the mighty realms that they could have ruled at their own will, in power and freedom in the East; and then whispers went abroad that the Valar had brought the Edain to Aman because of their jealousy, fearing that the beauty of the Quendi and the makers’ power that Iluvatar had bequeathed to them would grow too great for the Valar to govern, as the Elves waxed and spread over the wide lands of the world.  
Though forged and set with light, the Silmarils have brought only sadness and death, turning kin against kin. Feanor began to love the Silmarils with a greedy love, and begrudged the viewing of them to any other save his sons and his father. He forgot that the light that shone within them was not his own. As the lies of Melkor worked their evil magic, weapons were forged in secret, and plans were set. Elf slew Elf, and the Silmarils were taken. How are you now drawn into this doom, for the Silmarils have somehow ensnared yet another, am I correct?”  
“It is not for myself that I desire them,” Beren said, “But rather to win the hand of she whom I love above all things. And all I need is one of the great jewels. Once free of the terrors of the mountains, I wandered into the Girdle of Melian, and everything seemed different than it actually was, turned about and the trees themselves shifted their paths; some even laughed and spoke! I heard then beautiful singing, and I wondered then if I were being stalked by were-raccoons, playing their evil jokes in hopes to steal my food; especially since the singing began just as the cooking fish was ready,” Felagund was holding back an exclamation, not wanting to interrupt the story, but curious about were-raccoons. “Instead, I beheld the fairest maiden in all the world, dancing there in the moonlight; in a magical glen of flowers. She was graceful as a bird in flight and lovelier than anything else I have ever seen. Her hair was as black as midnight, flowing like a breeze, and her eyes gray as the morning mist…”  
The elf had a terrible feeling of impending doom, he knew exactly whom Beren was describing, and his heart felt hollow and ached, a chill wind blowing through him. Ice crystals grew there, as he mourned anew the death of Beor, which now felt like being abandoned and forsaken. So Beor had returned, and loved Luthien. But the essence of friendship was kindness and love, and so Felagund smiled and nodded, that Beren might continue his tale, and miss the brief look of anguish that might have come into his eyes.  
“So then I made a noise, stepping as I did upon a hidden twig, and frightened her, appearing unshaven and uncouth, as a wild man with a fish on a stick! But she had dropped her pipe, and came back later to look for it. I waded out into the river…”  
“Pipe!” Felagund exclaimed, trying to ignore the sadness that was lingering in his heart, “Luthien smokes?”  
“Like a dwarf,” Beren admitted, “But how did you know whom I was speaking of?”  
“No other maiden would wander so fearlessly in those woods, nor look so fair,” the elf answered. “And after many years have passed, all the Eldar become acquainted with one another. Finish your story,” he then urged.  
“There were several days of wonder in which I both smoked her pipe and waited beside the river. Strange dreams came to me, of things both wondrous and terrifying, and there was a vision and a fire in me. Then, like the sun rises with heart lifting beauty, she returned, and this time I called to her, appearing much cleaner. Unlike the Elves, Men must take additional cares with their appearance, lest they age early into that world of wizards. The moment I first spoke to her, was more magical than any Silmaril, or enchantment. She was very kind as well as beautiful, and I had her heart, just as she had mine,” Beren said sadly, weeping as he recalled their joy together. The elf grieved as well, for now Beor’s heart was forever given to another, and Luthien was a jealous goddess; she would tolerate no interference. There would be no great, grand adventures after Luthien claimed her chosen one; all would be as she desired, and he knew that his presence would be neither required nor desired. Beren spoke also of the proclamation of Thingol, and how he had been removed from Doriath. He realized, in both sadness and gratitude, as he spoke that Melian had given him the gift of speech, flowery and fair. It was a gift, but one given in sadness, and Beren knew it. If their quest should somehow succeed, Luthien would be parted from Melian, and even if that was the ultimate will of the Valar, it would still pain Melian greatly, although she loved both of them. Luthien was her beloved daughter, and Beren was also among of her creations, one of her birds, created long ago when the world was formed and she drew forth sound in Middle Earth. So it was with creation; once the creation is complete, it might therefore be given free will; which was the ultimate expression of mastery and confidence. Such freedom held the potential of destruction, which held the seeds of new creation. Something else would happen again. It would not be the same, but it would be.   
So it was that Felagund heard his tale in wonder and disquiet; speaking not of the stone in his heart, and he knew that the oath he had sworn was come upon him for his death, as long before he had foretold to Galadriel. He spoke then to Beren in heaviness of heart. “It is plain that Thingol desires your death; but it seems that this doom goes beyond his purpose, and that the Oath of Feanor is again at work. For the Silmarils are cursed with an oath of hatred, and he that even names them in desire moves a great power from slumber; and the sons of Feanor would lay all the Elf-kingdoms in ruin rather than suffer any other than themselves to win or possess a Silmaril, for the Oath drives them. And now Celegorm and Curufin are dwelling in my halls; and though I, Finarfin’s son, am King, they have won a strong power in the realm, and lead many of their own people. They have shown friendship to me in every need, but I fear that they will show neither love nor mercy to you, if your quest be told. Yet my own oath holds; and thus we are all ensnared.”   
“Perhaps it would have been better if the Silmarils had never been wrought, or Luthien had never set eyes upon me,” Beren said sadly.  
“Neither of them is your fault, they reflect the free will of others, and the ultimate ends of gods and goddesses whom we cannot hope to second guess. I understand the choices of Luthien; I know what it is to love those who fade so quickly from this earth. Though the years of the Edain have lengthened, by the reckoning of Men, after their coming to Beleriand; but at last Beor died, hooded and cloaked, like one of the wizards, when he had lived but one hundred and ninety three years, most of which were spent with me. Great was my sorrow when I realized that he was gone forever, and when he lay dead, of no wound or grief, but stricken by age, the Eldar saw for the first time the swift waning of the life of Men, and the death of weariness which they knew not in themselves; and they grieved greatly for the loss of their friend. But Beor at the last had relinquished his life willingly and passed in peace; and the Eldar wondered at this strange fate of Men, for in all their lore there was no account of it, and its end was hidden from them. Yet, I think now I understand that which the Valar chose not to tell us of beforehand. You appear exactly as he did, so much so that I feel that I am taken back to that morning in the woods when I first beheld the Edain, and first spoke with the young Beor, my dearest friend.”  
Beren understood much just then, and a flash of the understandings of Melian came to him, and he understood then not only his instant friendship with Felagund, but an image of time itself moving; as a spiral it was, yet a wheel and an axle, and also as the arrow he had always experienced it as before.  
“What dost thou think?” the elf said respectfully, observing him.  
“I think the Edain move more easily through time, and behold it; have you ever seen the spiral, or that perhaps it is an axle and wheel, that we are all ensnared in, except those who might jump from spiral arm to spiral arm? We are all here to help one another; that is the will of Illuvatar, that those who remain might hear the stories of those who undertake the cycles of the great wheel of life. So was the wisdom of Melian, when she spoke to me in her garden.” Then Beren smiled mischievously and said, “Having spoken with a great many old men, I have concluded that the gods let Men age so that they may hear a detailed criticism of all They have made.” Both elf and man then laughed, Felagund hiding his laughter behind his hand in a genteel fashion. Beren laughed heartily, in the joyful manner of human men, whilst thinking about all the elders he had listened to complaining like dwarves at a flower show. “I knew at our first meeting that we were friends,” Beren confided, “And had many grand adventures together. I had also seen your face before, in a vision given to me by Melian.”  
“This gives me much to ponder; many years could I devote to the unweaving of the words Melian has given you. Blessed you are, blessed you have been, and blessed you will be. You are greater than you would ever imagine, because within you is the undoing of both Sauron and Morgoth; I feel this like a great wind that blows past and through me. Would that I had the counsel of Melian in this hour! The Edain of old learned swiftly of the Eldar all such art and knowledge as they could receive, and their sons increased in wisdom and skill, until they far surpassed all others of Mankind, who dwelt still in the east of the mountains and had not seen the Eldar nor looked upon the faces that had beheld the Light of Valinor. Yet, you have seen something that I have not, and received greater counsel and understanding than what most of the Elves encounter. Though I now feel what you have described, that a great force is in motion, and if you should remember any more of it, from the times when you have gazed upon the shores beyond death, you must tell me of them, for I myself might soon wish to know how to navigate those waters.”  
“It moves like water and feels like air,” Beren told him, “It is the ether, and within the ether it is possible to view many other worlds, including the realm of shadows.”  
Felagund thought carefully, and wondered a great many questions he had not the words to ask, for he did not know exactly what those questions were. Then he thought, “I have seen from my own people a great fear of death, and after seeing the swiftness of the years that run past men, many are even more afraid of it. So they have told themselves that they are immortal, even as the Valar are, but I fear this is not so.”  
“So spoke both Luthien and Melian to me,” Beren said, “And I believe Melian was right. I did not understand the resting of death, but I almost do now, and it is the guiding hands of the Eldar Kindred that remind us of ourselves.”  
“Melian is always right,” Felagund stated. “Perhaps the Valar await our understanding. Although now I am honored to speak with you again, and I have gained great wisdom from out meeting, Thingol is greatly displeased, and has drawn us all into the Curse of Mandos. The great forces at work are not wholly benign. It is not only great wisdom and the love of learning arcane arts that has been unleashed to find us here.”  
“King Thingol thinks I am unworthy of the hand of Luthien, as once did I, but now I love her more than all else, and despite my protests and warnings to the contrary, she loves me, and the love of a goddess is not easily cast aside. I spoke to her of time, of eternity, and still she vowed to love me forever and the day after that. Forever is a vast ocean of time that no one can hope to navigate; and time has a way of changing things. Even if a man were to successfully cross the ocean of eternity, he would not be the same man who set sail. Yet, still she said she loved me, though I sought time and again to dissuade her. Then a realization came over me, a thought so hubristic and vast I hesitate to speak of it. Then it was that I understood her, and I knew that her heart was true, and that she loved me; me, a human man, of short years and temporary hopes. Therefore, I sought her hand, and Thingol in a fury demanded that I bring him in my hand a Silmaril from the Iron Crown, and then, and only then, might I wed Luthien.”  
Felagund sat thinking for a few minutes, and then bade Beren to follow him. “Many years ago, under the light of the Two Trees, when we fought the hideous fish-men from the sea, I found some trinkets upon their bodies that I think you may find interesting.” Behind some books on a shelf he kept a wooden box of simple construction, rustic at best. Opening the lock with a wizard’s spell, he showed his friend what lay inside. Not wanting to hold it closely, for it was as cold as the bottom of the sea and would freeze his hands, Felagund put on a glove and drew from the box a tiara, and Beren started at the strange, unearthly splendor of the alien, opulent fantasy that the elf held aloft. “Do not touch it,” Felagund warned him. “It is so cold it burns flesh.” Beren studied it without touching it, and Felagund set it down upon a table. It was clearly some sort of tiara, or crown, very tall in front, and with a very large and curiously irregular periphery, as if designed for a head of almost freakishly elliptical outline. The material seemed to contain some gold, though of a weird, lighter lustrousness that hinted at some strange alloy with an equally beautiful and scarcely identifiable metal. It was definitely not mithril, which anyone, indeed everyone, loved to touch and keep near their persons, even more than gold, but rather something wholly alien and different. The metal emitted an iciness that began to chill the room.   
Engraved upon the frozen crown were striking and puzzling untraditional designs not used by men, elves, or dwarves. Some were simply geometrical yet arranged in a swirling pattern towards the center, others were clearly marine; moulded in high relief upon its surface with a craftsmanship of incredible skill and grace.  
“I found it upon the head of their chieftain, one of those blasphemous fish-men,” Felagund said, “And it both fascinated and disgusted me, so I took it simply because if it contained great magic, I wished to deprive them of it. From it I have surmised that they are not the primitive monsters we had once supposed, but have a technology of their own; different from ours, as they operate exclusively within the sea. Even the aquatic elves reside mostly in the shallows, as they dislike the darkness of the deep, and sleep upon the surface.”  
Beren nodded, “I knew many of them in my youth,” he said, happy to talk about a pleasing subject, “There are many yet living in Numenor.”  
“Indeed,” the elf agreed, “For many of them became very afraid of the depths, and although they can all breathe under the sea, they are afraid of the dark deep, and confine themselves to waters the light penetrates.” Both elf and man were uncomfortably aware of being in the presence of some unknown and inhuman evil, as it called up within the very salt of their blood an uncomfortable sense of pseudo-memory, as if they were aware of some image from deep cells and tissues whose retentive functions are wholly primal and awesomely ancestral. Both felt better when Felagund rewrapped the hideous thing and placed it back in the box.  
“That would have fit upon the head of one of the worshippers I saw chanting to the braying, tentacled monster,” Beren said with a shudder, remembering the hideous sight of the edifice. “Did you fight them?”  
“The creatures are incredibly tough,” Felagund told him. “Their hides are rougher than fish scales, more of a chitonous exterior that it took incredible force to penetrate. If truly you wish to fulfill this quest, then you must be prepared. When we were fighting the hideous fish-frog men, they could retreat into the sea, and then reappear somewhere else upon the beach, our aquatic elven kin badly outnumbered. So it was that their king, the good and wise King Aquerus, made some of these rings, to enable we distant kin of the forest and mountains to venture under the sea, and breathe there as if we had gills.” As he returned the hideous tiara to its hiding place, in another secret location he pulled a smaller, and more lavishly decorated oaken box from another shelf. “These he gave freely to us, man and elf, although I think now that the only remaining ones are kept here by me.”   
So saying he opened the pretty wooden box, decorated with shells and pearls in wavelike, concentric designs, similar to yet wholly unlike the grotesque geometric patterns on the tiara. They made him think of sailing out alone upon the open sea, guided only by the stars. It was a wholly ancestral memory that came to him unbidden, like a startled reaction. Felagund pulled from the box a bag of greenish blue material, and pulled from within a very unpretentious ring, it looked like a bit of seaweed twisted up tight, formed into a ring, and left to dry that way. “Not much to look at,” Felagund laughed apologetically, “But the king of the sea elves was short of metal, all they had they had forged into weapons, and so he used what he had laying around, and of seaweed he had aplenty. His magic was very strong, however,” the elf continued, “And I think you will be pleasantly surprised by what it does when wet.”  
Beren put on the bit of green, and laughed out loud, “I feel like running outside to dance in the rain,” he exclaimed with joy, “That and to dive back into the sea, and swim with the fishes in the crystal blue waters.” A sudden desire to feel the salt water swirl around him and then to splash upon the surface flooded over him. A childhood memory returned to him, of the aquatic elves and the sailors of old riding the waves, both large and small with unparallel excitement and joy. He felt then such a calling of the sea that he had to consciously tell himself about all the other things that must be done, and why. In his mind there were dolphins in the swell in the front of the ships, or jumping out of the water while he rode the waves on towards the shore. “What manner of enchantment is this?” he wondered aloud.  
“These rings want to be wet,” Felagund smiled. “Then they expand back into what they are. The ring I just gave you will enable you to stay underwater as long as you like, and to not only breathe there, but to operate freely as if you were on land, keep your eyes from becoming defocused, and protect you from the pressure of the depths. These rings were meant for warriors of the earth and air to descend beneath the waves and fight, and are exactly what we now need.” He studied one that he had placed upon his own finger. “Deceptively simple,” he said, “In the proper application, they are very powerful.”  
Beren agreed, smiling since he had put the ring on, “Yes, anything to do with water. I like it very much, and I thank you for it, although it makes me long for the sea.”  
“Resist it,” Felagund added, interrupting Beren’s daydream of beautiful aquatic elf maids, their lips of pearlescent pink and soft pale skin, hair of sandy brown and eyes of greenish hue swirling about them in organic beauty, “This is no time to sail for Numenor, or worse yet, run off and go surfing!” This made the young man laugh, and having quite forgotten the wicked tiara, they settled into soft cushioned chairs, and enjoying some fine wine, passed a most agreeable evening. Beren felt as though he had known King Felagund all his life, indeed longer, and trusted the elf with his life, his quest, and his entire future.  
“I see now that Elves are not the only people who feel a longing for the sea,” Felagund observed.   
“I saw and felt things when I put that ring on that I had not thought about in years, but also recalled sights that my great-grandfathers had seen. I even feel like I have fins and gills, and that I need to jump into the sea!” Beren laughed.  
“Perhaps, if all goes very well, we may one day play beside the sea; and I too feel the urge to play in the waves, and at my age! However, that is what they are supposed to do, rouse the troops for marine battles.”   
“I’m ready!” Beren announced, a love of the sea surging through his veins. “What are we fighting, the hideous fish-men?”  
“Yes, my friend, among other vile creatures,” Fin informed him, “And we will need reinforcements, you and I alone just won’t do.”  
“Indeed,” Beren agreed, and long and great was their conversation far into the night, as it had been many years before, well seasoned with time, food, and wine.

Then King Felagund spoke before his people, “I have gathered you here to rouse your hearts,” he began, “Long has Morgoth lurked upon the edge of our lands, taking our people captive and corrupting all that is. The time has come to finish the great work my father’s brother began, and to rid ourselves of this menace at our doors. The tales of torment and terror told by escaped slaves are reason enough to break open Angband, and put an end to this menace once and for all. Does it not tear at your hearts to think of your friends and family tortured to death by orcs; or worse yet, kept alive as slaves to them and other evil creatures? How long will you stand there and do nothing? This young man, Beren, has awakened me from my torpor, and reminded me of all that has gone before, and of the great deeds done and gone, and mightier deeds yet that need doing. We have been fools long enough, to do nothing while an enemy grows ever stronger.”  
“There is not strength in all of Nargothrond to clear the darkness!” a voice called from the crowd.  
“Perhaps not by open war or strength of arms can we achieve our victory, but our purpose should be clear, to rid the world of both Sauron and Morgoth. Also it comes to me unbidden, what if one of us, or many of us, had been there when Fingolfin fell? What would the world now be if one of us had been there to avenge his death on the spot?” There was silence throughout the great hall, after hearing words that none wanted to hear, and many chose not to listen.  
“Then what do you suggest?” came another voice.  
“I suggest we go in disguise,” Felagund said at last, “In disguise and in secret. Then we shall come upon him unawares and slay him by whatever means necessary. The dark lord is our target. When he is gone, his minions will be leaderless and flee.”  
“Impossible!” Curufin, son of Feanor called out.  
“Why do you discourage me? Are not the Silmarils you seek even upon the crown of Morgoth? Is that not the right place to seek them? When the dark lord has fallen, then what? Would you have me leave them upon the floor?” Felagund asked rhetorically, making light of the darkness, and spoke then of Beren and his need, recalling the deeds of Barahir, and his vow; and he declared that it was laid upon him to aid the son of Barahir in his need, and he sought the help of his chieftains.   
Then Celegorm arose amid the throng, and drawing his sword he cried: “Be he friend or foe, whether demon of Morgoth, or Elf, or child of Men, or any other living thing in Arda, neither law, nor love, nor league of hell, nor might of the Valar, nor any power of wizardry, shall defend him from the pursuing hate of Feanor’s sons, if he take or find a Silmaril and keep it; for the Silmarils we alone claim, until the world ends.”   
At this, King Felagund sighed and rolled his eyes. “Yet, it would seem something keeps you from them right now. What might that be? Mere inconvenience, or the mighty head of Morgoth? Should I consider you one of my companions, my first volunteer, as it were, to accompany me to the quest?”  
Celegorm turned to the crowd, “This errand of which he speaks, it is a death march. None who go there shall ever return. It is the will of a fool. Beneath the towers and mountains lie the deep vaults and dungeons, teeming with orcs, Balrogs, and their whips of flame, foul creatures in spider form, some with a man’s chest and a spider’s body, there also lie vampires, werewolves, and other things of which I know not. Under that great reek of dark smoke and smells dwell great evils. Past the realm of Sauron and the living world lies the greatest of evils, a watery doom of suffocating nature. There, down beside the Ancient Evil One himself, dwell demonic fishes and octopoid creatures of terrifying habit, and to look upon them can cause death by fright.”  
“You speak as if you had been there,” Beren interjected, feeling both suspicion and annoyance with the two brothers. “Why do you suppose there is dark smoke? They are obviously making something, probably weapons of war.”  
“You would know, mortal slave,” Celegorm snapped.  
“He is no slave!” Felagund told him loudly. “This is the son of Barahir, who came to me in my hour of need, where you certainly did not. I swore an oath to guide and aid him and his kin. Barahir fell far away, beyond my sight, where I would have wished for him not to go, for Dorthonion is ruined, and it is unwise to return to one’s old home, once it has become the abode of orcs and dragons. Hence, he is lost to us, and we are saddened because of it.” Then Felagund was quiet for a moment, lost in the cycle of deep remembrance, the voices of lost friends echoing through his head, and Beren began to speak.  
“What Felagund speaks is the truth…” he began.  
The crowd was confused, murmuring among themselves, when Curufin spoke, interrupting Beren’s thoughts. “Do you remember Glaurung, the first of the Uruloki, the fire drakes of the north? Brave archers drove it back into Angband, but do you think it is gone? No, it grows ever stronger, and there are more, besides…” Curufin spoke long and softly, with greater power than had his brother, conjuring in the minds of the Elves a vision of war and the ruin of Nargothrond. So great a fear did he set in their hearts that all refused to go into open battle, and they vowed to remain in their own woods, pursuing all strangers with wizardry and venomed dart, forgetting the bonds of kinship. Thus they fell from the valour and freedom of the Elves of old, and their land was darkened. Many other words he spoke, as potent as were long before in Tirion the words of his father that first inflamed the Noldor to rebellion.   
Beren then spoke in frustration, “This destruction is what will be if we do nothing! What do you suppose those fire drakes eat, anyway, pancakes? No, they are fed your kin and mine, after they have been worked to the bone!”  
“He is correct,” Felagund told them, “Too long have we allowed an enemy to grow strong, and if the first strike is a strong and careful one, we will win back our freedom.”  
And now they murmured that Finarfin’s son was not as a Vala to command them, and they turned their faces from him. But the curse of Mandos came upon the brothers, and dark thoughts arose in their hearts, thinking to send forth Felagund alone to his death, and to usurp, it might be, the throne of Nargothrond; for they were of the eldest line of the princes of the Noldor.  
And Felagund seeing that he was forsaken took from his head the silver crown of Nargothrond and cast it at his feet saying: “Your oaths of faith to me you may break, but I must hold my bond. Yet if there be any on whom the shadow of this curse has not yet fallen, I should find at least a few to follow me, and should not go hence as a beggar that is thrust from the gates.”   
There were few that stood by him; and the chief of them, who was named Edrahil, stooping lifted the crown and asked that it be given to a steward until Felagund’s return. “For you remain my king, and theirs,” he said, “Whatever may betide.”  
With Edrahil stepped forward his dearest friend, “I will go with you,” Ledrel offered. “I cannot watch you go off on such a task without my aid.” Others offered to go as well, bound by friendship and honor, none wanting to be left behind.  
“I of course go with you, whenever you are ready to go,” Beren said, casting a low eye at the brothers, feeling a sense of evil he had seldom sensed from elves before.  
“Silence, New-Beor!” Celegorm sneered.  
“Ber-en,” the Edain corrected him, as though the elf were an errant, simple child.  
“As you wish,” the elf waved his hand dismissingly, controlling his anger, “They all look alike,” he said flippantly, causing mirth among his supporters.  
“We also will send aid with you,” Curufin said. “My servant Semaj shall also go with you.” All eyes then turned to a lanky elf with dark, oily hair who had been laughing the loudest at Beren but whom now looked suddenly surprised to find himself volunteered for such a mission.  
“Thus do the true hearted and the brave step forward, and the faithless cringe behind,” Felagund said, staring at Curufin and Celegorm, who were not pleased to be so addressed, but they held their tongues.  
Then Felagund gave the crown of Nargothrond to Orodreth his brother to govern in his stead; and Celegorm and Curufin said nothing, but they smiled and went from the halls. The brothers spoke softly so that none other might hear, “Such good fortune! The king throws himself into the pits with all his friends and New-Beor and takes our most worthless servant with him!” Such was their delight they feasted that night and opened a bottle of very old wine.

Beren fell asleep that night feeling a profound sensation of loss. The food, the wine, the stories, and the music had been delightful, but when he finally laid himself down upon the silky soft bedding, quilting and furs to cover himself with, he found that he was worried for Luthien and guilty over the future of Felagund and the other Elves who had volunteered to help them. He was torn in different directions, and he knew his destiny lay with the beautiful goddess he loved, and would be with if he could. He also knew that his past had been with Felagund, and that it would all soon come to an end. The other Elves and sundry volunteers made his soul creak; why did his love for Luthien cost so many other lives? The thought tormented him, and although he was sorely tempted to blame Thingol for it, he knew the weight was upon many heads, many shoulders, and his own mind tormented him unmercifully. Beren blamed himself for this curse coming upon all of them, but then also thought that perhaps if the other elves could be stirred to action, if they might all join together, with whatever remaining men he might yet find in the forests and fields, that they might lay siege to the forces of evil, and rid the world of them forever.  
The next morning then, they held a meeting, the first of many, for the attendance of only those who would be going on the journey, to discuss their departure, what they should bring, and how exactly to accomplish their goal. Beren wondered at it all, as he sat next to Felagund, and looked around the room at his fellow adventurers. He would have advised sharpening his sword and steeling his will instead of meetings, but that was not the Elvish way. They spoke at great length about very small details, and decided nothing.  
In addition to Felagund and himself, there were thirteen others; twelve volunteers and the agent of Curufin and Celegorm, Semaj. At Finrod’s other side sat Edrahil, thoughtful and reputed to be very handy with a sword. Next to him was his friend Ledrel, smiling and beautiful even at this unpleasant occasion. He was young, the equivalent of Beren in age and appearance, and the young Numenorean’s heart was against this young elf’s going along, but he insisted, saying he would be ashamed to be left behind, and that this quest needed every hand they could muster. With that argument Beren could find no flaw, indeed, they were even taking Semaj, who was seated on Beren’s other side. Just older than Ledrel was Nemredel, a quiet, contemplative elf with hair and eyes as brown as a tree, he was as serious as Ledrel was silly and playful. Beren was truly surprised to learn they were brothers. Nedrus was just a little older yet, and the eldest of the three; who took it upon himself to supervise his younger brothers. He wished in his heart that Edrahil had not volunteered for this quest, and thus drawn Ledrel into it; and now the older two brothers, who could not in good conscience let their youngest sibling march off into Angband without assistance, were bound into the quest as well. Nedrus sighed inaudibly, and then counted his blessings that their sisters were not coming along.   
Seated next to Nedrus and eldest of the elves, even older than Felagund, was Seldan. Still very quick of mind and eye, he was the first to agree with Beren and Felagund that something had to be done about the growing power and might of the evil next door, and that they were the ones to do it. Too long, in his opinion, had evil been allowed to fester and grow strong in unchallenged turpitude. He had mentioned this before to Felagund, who had then gotten a glazed look and spoken of Finarfin and his challenge of Morgoth, or of Barahir and the great battle that led to his troth. Seldan was patient with the king, after all, he was the king, but Seldan’s eye had long been upon Angband. Up in trees, he watched. On patrols, he watched. He remembered the ancient days, when Melkor and Sauron had walked among them, both charming and disruptive, causing arguments and instilling hate and discontent between brothers, and between husbands and wives. Seldan had advocated a swift and merciful death for Sauron many years ago, and no one had listened. Now, his words had proved true, but Seldan knew better than to draw attention to it. Better to repeat his original assessment without blame.   
Seldan had talked to the Numenorean boy after the initial public discussion, to evaluate his devotion. He looked so much like Beor in his early years, it was almost impossible. Yet, Seldan was open to new explanations, as long as they made sense and served the purpose at hand. Beren had told him at length about Luthien and their quest for the Silmarils, and Seldan had simply nodded along. They had agreed on many points, the most important being that they needed more elves and men; more swords, more bows, more feet rushing forward. The Numenorean boy had nodded emphatically, expressing his desire for a more concentrated effort; yet the king had thought that perhaps by stealth they might prevail.   
“Yet,” Seldan pointed out, “If we should succeed in obtaining the Silmarils, all of Angband will be chasing us. If we should then reach home, a war will have thus been started.”  
“Then we will prepare for it,” Felagund nodded gravely.   
Some of the other elves with Seldan gave Beren some hope. Three were the patrol guards who had originally brought him to the king, and he was convinced and knowledgeable of their abilities; they would be an asset. Indeed, the guards were equally impressed with the human boy; had he not announced himself, he could have come embarrassingly close to the city before the guards would have detected and shot him.  
Beren was also fairly sure of Hunter; a lone wood elf of indeterminate age; whom no one could remember his true name, if he ever had one. He was often known to be alone in the forest; hunting orcs and other evil creatures. No one knew more about killing orcs, ogres and trolls. He still dressed as a rustic wood elf, in simple green cloth and brown leather, never trying to accommodate the fashions of the Noldor, seldom speaking unless directly asked a question. Beren felt a liking for this quiet loner, and was very glad of his help and experience; orcs would not be their only enemies. They needed experienced warriors, and if they possessed spell casting ability, so much the better. Like most Elves, those seated around the table were well versed in the arts, and worshipped beauty, few of them had spent much time in battles. Elves loved to talk, and most of them spoke several languages, including the archaic forms of Elvish; and as such, from the perspective of Beren, and Hunter, countless valuable hours were spent and wasted with beautiful words.   
Beren, Hunter, and Seldan decided to go themselves, to scout the path, and to conduct reconnaissance missions. Felagund required information, so they might plan their attack more skillfully, instead of simply marching in. It was on these trips that they chanced to meet someone very helpful, known only as Blaine, a man of unusual origin, and after great pleading on the part of the Numenorean man, this quasi-mortal creature agreed to accompany the Companionship and to lead them by the secret ways into Angband. Thus, they brought him back to Nargothrond with them.  
Beren told him of their quest, and he had nodded and approved of the choice of Luthien. “That’s the way it ought to be,” he’d said. “A woman should choose her husband, and when she decides, ‘that’s the one for me,’ let no man argue it. No good can ever come of doing so. Then, if she’s unhappy later on, she’s got nobody else to blame but herself,” he’d told Beren. “Besides, my grandmother was a fairy of the fey world that is woven alongside this one. Maybe I’m just biased.”   
“Perhaps,” Beren laughed. Of course, I agree with you, and I would like to see this alternate realm that lies alongside of ours.”  
The Elves were a little startled by his eye patch, a tan strap of leather to hide an old wound. He was to lead them by a secret route into Angband. “Since you have not an army, in silence and subterfuge lie your only hopes,” he told them. “I will take you by the routes of the Fey and the Little People,” Blaine told them. “For I am of the Fey, although I may not look it,” he laughed, “And this path …  
“What happened to your eye, and your arm?” Beren asked.  
“Did your mother ever tell you not to run with a blade?”  
“Of course, I only had a slingshot until I could be trusted not to run with a blade.”  
“My mother was so busy passing through the veil back and forth into the fairy realm that I had plenty of time alone to run around with knives and daggers. My arm was removed by an orc with a scimitar.”   
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Beren said. “When I was very small, my mother and her sisters kept a close watch on all of us children; but then again, we came from Numenor on ships which little children could easily fall overboard from, and after that we traveled the rivers of Middle Earth, which also have their own dangers, especially for the very small.”  
“Faeries can’t pay attention that long,” Blaine told him plainly, “After the knife I accompanied my father along on his hunting trips, here in the mortal realm, instead of staying at home. Thus I learned the arts of woodcraft at a young age.” Blaine himself was a man of sense, despite his ancestry. He had the fey far vision of weird and hidden things, but a sensible man’s quick eye for the outwardly unconvincing; an amalgam which had both served him well and led him far afield. Then Beren told him of the fate of his father, Barahir, and his hatred of the orcs.  
Many hours were later spent by Beren and Blaine, with Hunter and sometimes Seldan along, walking through the woods around Nargothrond, and inspecting the material and invisible barriers between the material and the other planes. The realm of Faerie was accessible, once one knew what to look for. The Outer Planes, and the Elemental Planes, were another story.   
Near to the elven lands the fey plain was an enchanted realm, with incredible peaks rising majestically from the water. They crossed a bridge to see mountain tops and pyramids rising flower-like and delicate from pools of violet mist to play with the flaming golden clouds and the first stars of evening. Lanterns and lights were seen bobbing upon the shore; and they heard a sweet harmony; itself a starry filament of dream redolent with fairy music. “This is the realm that lies alongside yours,” their guide explained. Loveliness and elder magic dripped and glowed through space and time. “Think you can find your way back here?”  
They nodded, and Blaine continued to speak. “The lands nearer to Angband will be loathsome indeed, as foul as this is fair.”  
“Is this how you can appear unnoticed by our guards?” Felagund asked. He had noticed Blaine preferred to come and go unseen by the excitable and loquacious elven community.   
“The short answer is yes,” Blaine said. “The long answer is that I plan my route around yours. Having figured out your routines, I can easily work around them by slipping by in the dark while something else in the forest makes a disturbance. I could have walked a horse through when it took all of your guards to surround a human boy. Have a little perspective on who is an enemy and who is not.”

The start of the journey was much delayed by the feigned illnesses of Semaj, until the king told him that they would leave without him if he did not cure himself, seeming sicklier than one of the Edain from the East. On an evening of autumn Felagund and Beren set out from Nargothrond with their ten companions, including Felagund’s captain, Edrahil, and his dear friend, Ledrel, who had insisted upon accompanying them, saying that he could never live with himself should Edrahil not return and he had done nothing to help. Beren had grave doubts about the wisdom of their errand, and the method, and felt even worse when he looked into the young, elvish face of Ledrel. He remembered what Luthien had said to him, that the elves were not immortal, they only believed their own fairy tales, but seeing an excitable young elf throwing his life away on what Ledrel thought was a calling from the gods to nobly serve the greater good, but what Beren secretly suspected would be a suicide mission, tore at his heart. He wondered at the power of Felagund, to seriously contend with the will of Sauron or Morgoth. Felagund was a healer of truly awe-inspiring power, and his regal bearing made Beren wonder if maybe Luthien was right about some elves, but not about a few others. The story of Fingolfin had given him something to think about. Beren knew all too well his own mortality, he had never been in doubt or denial about it, and Luthien had told him that the others were deluding themselves about their immortality; and Beren wondered about Felagund’s belief in his own divinity. Yet Melian was immortal, and more than just immortal, she was more than one person, and knew so very much, as Luthien and Felagund did. His absolute belief in the success of the mission, and their bonds of friendship, were compelling, and his very presence could inspire others to give the very best of themselves. Speaking with Felagund was healing in itself; without any overt spells; perhaps immortality existed in various types, physical, spiritual, children, and the thoughts and ideas one gave birth to. Felagund was a great king. Was he truly that great a wizard, or as powerful a warrior as Fingolfin? Beren hoped so, feeling more than a little confused, but having no other plans of value, he was going along on this quest. Besides, there would be orcs to slay, and Beren hated orcs.   
The Elves did not seem as grim as Beren felt. Felagund took him by the hand. “We are about to set out upon our grand adventure, why do you seem to despair?”  
“Is there any real hope?” he asked, looking around and seeing that they were alone.  
“Of course there is!” the Elf King responded energetically. “If you despair, you do your enemies’ work for them.”  
“Yet unrealistic hopes also play to their advantage,” Beren thought aloud. “It is not for myself that I grieve ahead of time, but for the ones who go with us, especially for the young elves who feel honored to go. Their lives may be forfeit, and for what have they themselves gained? It is guilt I feel, not fear.”  
Felagund looked upon him with curiosity and renewed appreciation. “Only I have vowed to accompany you, the others have volunteered, hoping for fame and glory. No one is forced or coerced upon this journey. Any may decide not to go.”  
“I feel awful, as though I am leading beautiful, young innocents to their deaths.”  
“That, my friend, is the burden of leadership. Your job now is to make each of yours worth twenty of the other.” Felagund gave Beren’s hand a firm squeeze, and an encouraging smile, and the human man shook his head.  
“To lead one’s men to certain doom?”  
“Then your men must have absolute faith.” He smiled at Beren. “Fortunately, we lead Elves, not Wild Men, Fey, Gnomes or Halflings, to hide behind the trees or within burrows in the ground, feasting upon mushrooms while our enemies trod upon the roof!” Beren laughed and shook his head. “Buttery mushrooms, at that,” Felagund laughed along with him, feeling an upwelling of joy and sadness; this was just like the evenings he had spent with Beor long ago.   
“Well seasoned with herbs and salt,” Beren laughed, thinking of the Little People he had met.   
The Elf king studied the young human while he indulged in a moment’s gallows humor. “To claim your lady fair, you must fulfill your quest, and do you suppose that my brave guards do not also hope to attract fair elf maids by valiant deeds?”  
This made the young human man smile and finally laugh as he continued to think upon it. “I suppose I had not thought about that,” he admitted. “But you and I both know, this is likely to be a one way trip.”  
Felagund seemed discouraged for just a moment, and then he brightened and drew a fresh breath. “The oath of Feanor, the will of the gods, our own fates, and the actions of one another are all at work. I sense the future hangs upon us, the choices we make and the results of our actions will determine the fates of many.” He saw Beren smile and nod, and then he changed the subject abruptly.  
“Do you know of the Dreamworld?” Felagund asked.  
“Of course!” Beren laughed, “Although these days, all my time is spent with Luthien. When I was young, I used to play in the great games, and dance in the halls, and there was magic everywhere. As a grown man, I adventured with my parents and the warriors of Dorthinion, in many brave battles. Although I knew I was dreaming, I could control them, and I was fully aware of what I was doing, and it was like to a second life; another realm I entered upon sleeping. I used to pretend so many things!”  
Felagund was laughing. “So do all children! I remember being young once, a long time ago, yet the memory never leaves me completely. I can remember playing; I am not certain I could do it now if my life depended upon it, but I remember the games and pure enjoyment of playing.”  
“Our lives may depend upon many things,” Beren suddenly said, with a grim note, “But my heart tells me that playing will not be one of them.”  
“Wait,” Felagund told him. “Many things may happen, and the greater number of mortal men experience their dream life and nocturnal visions as perhaps no more than faint and fantastic reflections of their waking experiences. There were some who found their way to the Otherworld, and looked upon the light of the Two Trees. Their ethereal character served to separate them by will or no from the greater number of mortals, and to them was granted the eternal life of the Eldar, but only in the Dreamworld...”  
As the elf talked, Beren smiled and thought to himself that they might sleep, or Felagund might simply talk all night long and not notice. 

Finding friends and lovers in the Dreamworld was always chancy. People who were physically together had an easier time; lovers sharing a bed were the most able to find one another in the Dreamworld, as their spirits started from the same point and their bodies, the source of their power, lay together. A spirit needed a source of energy, and bodies were the best way. Discorporate spirits could draw the energy they needed so desperately from others, but it was more difficult, it needed to be from an extreme feeling on the part of the living. Love was easy, a spirit could accompany the living, and the energy given was surrendered gladly. Spirits without such support were in a more precarious position, and the desperate would terrify mortals simply to feed off of the energy their fear emitted. Beren lay there in bed, thinking all about it, waiting to fall asleep, where he would find Felagund or Luthien, whoever was asleep simultaneously, or sometimes he would speak with his deceased parents. They too needed energy to continue, and the people of Dorthinion were few and scattered. Energy was in short supply. Gorlim’s wraith had expended all of his energy in speaking to Beren. It was a sacrifice that could only be appreciated in hindsight. When he entered the Dreamworld tonight, he would appear where he always did, beside the sea, and whoever was there was who he would spend the night with, whatever adventures they might have. Luthien would find him if she were asleep, Felagund would find him if Luthien did not, and perhaps his family would be upon a ship, and he would visit again with them. If no one was there, then he would spend a quiet evening walking along the beaches and through the forests alone. Maybe. Maybe he should, he thought, just to spend some time alone with himself.

Upon the fateful day of their departure, Felagund gave each of them one of the seaweed rings, because they would need them to descend the deep water into the terrifying caves where Morgoth yet dwelt. For demons of fire he had no magic save bow and sword. Finally ready to leave, cloaks on and clean boots, they left the gates of Nargothrond and they journeyed beside Narog to his source in the Falls of Irvin. Not by air, land, or sea did they travel, but rather through a doorway into the Unseen Realm. Blaine took them henceforth through the Faerie Realm, and wondrous sights met their eyes. It was similar to yet wholly unlike the world they knew, vistas below them of color and sound, as they crossed the bridges between worlds, rivers of sight and lands vibrating with thought and feelings they had never known glowed in the distance. As Beren looked down over the rails of the bridge, he saw there colors and sparkles, lights moving below. There were winged beings above them, and voices below. All of the Company felt a rush of the life force moving through them, for the realm of Faerie was seldom static, but always in motion. There were stable islands and trees, but all else was like light. Then it faded away, and they were in the Material Plane once again. Blaine had taken them as far as he had said he would; for the hidden ways of the fairy peoples had never penetrated far into Angband, but they had secret ways of vanishing that were unknown to all others. Thus it was that they found themselves at the borders of the Isle of Sauron.  
Beren looked around him at the hellish landscape. It had appeared as though out of nowhere. All of the Companionship looked around in horrified disgust and dismay; they felt a sense of evil magic everywhere, as well as a charnel smell of sewage and death as if in an open graveyard. Not all the fair words of Felagund could convince Blaine to remain in the befouled air of Sauron’s Isle.   
“Why can you not stay with us?” Ledrel asked again, hoping to sway Blaine at the last moment. “We have so many uses for a sorcerer and warrior of your strength.”  
“You do,” the fairy-man agreed, his manner as gruff as any dwarf. “Beyond all doubt, you do. But you see only this side of the realm, and there are others I must aid and defend as well. My own family and children need my help first. I must lead them all safely into the Faerie Realm, and I shall return to aid you as I might.” The Elves could not argue with that, and their temporary companion looked over his shoulder at something they could not see, and said, “The doors of the Hidden Paths change, and I must leave now. Besides,” he added, “I should die of the stench of open graves and that hint of a deuce laid down by the devil.”   
Ledrel laughed, with everyone else joining in afterward. The beautiful golden haired elf then entreated again, “Stay with us, we need you!”  
Blaine wavered for a moment, and then said, “Remember this spot, when you need to make a quick escape. With Sauron and all the forces of Angband behind you, to disappear into the Faerie Realm will save your lives but not your people if you do not quickly reappear in Nargothrond. Do you remember the way?”   
The elves nodded and Beren said, “Of course, but it would be wonderful if you would stay with us.”  
“I’m sure you do think that,” the Faerie captain said, “But I have spent too long with you people already, I have pressing business elsewhere.”  
“Do not leave us!” Ledrel cried. “We need you!”  
“Everyone needs me,” was the answer, “But my family comes first. Good luck to all of you, and remember this spot, if the hordes of evil shall be chasing you, return here and make your escape!” All of the company nodded, indicating their understanding.   
They thanked him profusely for his help, as he prepared to leave them to continue his own work, for as he had told them many times, the battle against evil had many fronts. Blaine left them with words of warning, “Be on your guard; and trust no one. Beware especially the demonesses; they have no souls to lose, and serve their spider goddess with closet jealousy. It is a land of lies, and even the best hearted man or elf can be corrupted. Beware the music, for in the evenings; there is a great spell that the spider goddess casts upon them all, to draw Men, Elves, and the demonesses further into her service. You must resist its call. Particularly those of the demonesses that possess convincing powers; their words will lead you into doom. There is one that can drive men and elves into insanity with subtle spells. Do not let any of them into your heads! Lady demons have no strength of arms, so they excel at solipsistic words. Beware!” So saying, Blaine took his leave of them, disappearing alongside their sight into one of the secret stairways of the Fey.   
Felagund heard Beren sigh, both looking up into the overcast sky, and knew what the Numenorean thought; that a valuable hand with a sword had been lost, and he put his hand upon Beren’s shoulder, and reassured him, “We have done well thus far. We have learned much of the arcane lore of the fey from our guide, and now we might recognize the doors to aid our eventual escape. We have learned to pass unseen into the shadow realm of the fey, and so give us a tremendous advantage over our adversaries.”

Beneath the Shadowy Mountains they came upon a company of orcs, and slew them all in their camp by night; and they took their gear and their weapons. By the arts of Felagund their own forms and faces were changed into the likeness of orcs, complete with repulsive rotting fangs and a soul petrifying smell to their breath and clothing.  
Beren was utterly disgusted and protested, saying that to take the form of a vile creature dignified the thing itself; “Can we at least assume the form of ogres?” the young Numenorean man protested. “It is a torment and a prison, this gross body of degenerate flesh! For they are a foul and hideous race of degenerate monsters who have gained my eternal enmity by slaying my family!”  
Felagund argued that the ends justified the means, “So many ogres would never travel together, and we are trying blend in.” At length did Beren agree to wear the detested garb and imagery, but he hated every second of it.  
And thus disguised they came far upon the northward road, and ventured into the western pass, between Ered Wethrin and the highlands of Taur-nu-Fuin. But Sauron in his tower was ware of them, and doubt took him; for they were in haste, and stayed not to report their deeds, as was commanded to all the servants of Morgoth that passed that way. Therefore he sent to waylay them, and bring them before him.

They saw first the Ogaards at the gate. They were large, ogre-like creatures, smiling as if in friendship, and then lumbered off to go tell Sauron of the Elves approach.  
“They recognized us!” Beren exclaimed softly, so the monstrous ogres would not hear.   
“They cannot have,” Semaj argued. “Did not the king put a disguise upon us?”  
“Seeing through such magic is their power; that is why they are set there beside the gates!” Beren argued urgently. “Quickly, let us shoot them before they warn everyone of our arrival!”   
“Shooting the guards does tell everyone we are here,” Edrahil advised the king, “Yet I agree with Beren, that is their purpose and their power.”  
“Very well, shoot those things and hide the bodies,” Felagund said, and the elves then shot the slow moving ogres, and set about trying to hide the bodies, rolling the enormous things down the hillside.  
Several orcs saw them and burst into laughter. “That’s not how you do it!” one guffawed, interrupting what they had hoped would be an unseen process.  
“Got a way to make it roll faster?” Felagund said, imitating their guttural speech and hideous laughter of an orc.  
“Nah, stupid! Take the gold first!” he shouted, looting the creature’s pockets. His companions quickly did the same, leaving the enormous ogres with only their shabby garments and vacant stares. Even the hats and boots were stolen, one orc running off with them under his arms, loaded with gold and coppers from the ogre’s pockets; another simply took their pipes and smoke pouches and then ran for it.  
“This is going from bad to worse,” Beren said to Felagund. “Now we have to kill them too, or they will run off and tell everyone what happened! Some are already gone!”  
In response, the king shot several orcs that were still looting the ogre corpses, and then told his men, “Arrange them to appear as if the orcs attacked and robbed the Ogaards, and then we must move on quickly!” Losing no time, they took back their own arrows, and left the dead ogres and looting orcs right where they were. Such attacks were common among evil folk, and as such, they hoped that their actions would not stand out.   
They looked up into the distance, and saw there the Tower Sauron had taken for his own, now a distant black needle in a glare of glowing horrific red, set against a landscape that all avoided. All noticed an evil, rotting smell of open graves issuing forth from it when the wind blew. Semaj pinched his nose and proclaimed, “I feel nauseated, perhaps I should return to Nargothrond…”  
The king turned and looked at him in disgust and disappointment, and began to speak of duty and the very obvious fact that it was too late to run away. “Great shame should be upon you,” Felagund said, in a fatherly tone, “For having come this far you would abandon us all and turn and flee! As of yet, nothing has even been asked of you, and you indeed are the one who drank the last of our wine last night!”  
This caused some of the Companions to laugh, and through the spell of Felagund it sounded over the hills like course, raucous Orcish laughter.

Word spread quickly that some of the orcs had thieved from some ogres, and the orcs in question bragged loudly and long about how they had beaten a pair of ogres and helped themselves to their loot. When questioned again by their captains, they changed their stories, and both blamed one another, and a mysterious band of orcs no one could remember having seen before. Blame flew fast and far, suddenly no one was at fault, and the captains, not being as ignorant as the rabble they commanded, decided to go and hunt for these intruders. One of the captains, on his way to report to the Dark Lord, decided to mention it, in case he could be seen as the loyal servant who reported the untrustworthy ones. 

Sauron did not believe them, nor did he doubt that there had been treachery or that there were dead ogres. Suspicious, he stopped his work for a little while to go see for himself how clumsy orcs could have defeated two large Ogaards. One of the garbled stories also contained a bit of information of interest to him, none of the orcs had ever seen this group before. Coming of his tower in the form of a dark cloud, he floated briefly and then spotted them. Thirteen elves and one man all disguised as orcs, and moving together without shoving or shouting. Thus they gave themselves away unknowingly.  
The Companions then looked up to see an ominous looking dark cloud settling before them, and it coalesced into the figure of a man, but twelve feet tall and possessing wings and a barbed, poisonous tail. All in black armor, and armed with a heavy mace, his preferred weapon. “Why do you come to my gate?” Sauron demanded.  
Felagund stepped forward, “We come to challenge you, and thereby win the freedom of our people, whom you have taken captive and made slaves.” For that was indeed Felagund’s goal, any great jewels could come later.  
“Instead, you shall lose your own freedom or your life,” the dark knight scowled, and began to cast a spell upon them. He chanted a song of wizardry, of piercing, opening, of treachery, revealing, uncovering, betraying.  
Then Felagund began swaying, and sang in answer a song of staying. Resisting, battling against power, of secrets kept, strength like a tower, and trust unbroken, freedom, escape; of changing and of shifting shape, of snares eluded, broken traps, the prison opening, the chain that snaps.  
Thus befell the contest of Sauron and Felagund which is renowned. For Felagund strove with Sauron in songs of power, twisting the meaning and effect of the dark lord’s curses, and the power of the king was very great; but Sauron had the mastery, as is told, as they ruined one another’s spells, and each vied for control.  
Backwards and forwards swayed their song, reeling and foundering, as ever more strong, as Sauron’s orcs and trolls came from behind, to assault the companions with scimitars and spears, but the elves heard them. Standing alongside Felagund, they drew their swords and bows. Arrows flew from the enchanted bows of the elves, and Beren slew orcs with delight and revenge, thinking that he would avenge his family, orc by orc if necessary, and left the trolls to the elves. The chanting swelled, Felagund fought, and all the magic and might he brought, of Elvenesse into his words.  
Softly in the gloom they heard the birds in his spell, singing afar in Nargothrond, the sighing of the Sea beyond the western world, on sand of pearls in Elvenland.  
Beside Felagund, one of the elves fell, slain by a troll. The mighty pounding and red glow of Sauron’s spell grew brighter and louder, drowning out the fair voice of the elven sorcerer. The Dark Lord felt his victory coming, and putting forth all his power, chanted a vile spell of death and blood. Then the gloom gathered; darkness growing, in Valinor, the red blood flowing, beside the Sea, where the Noldor slew, the Foamriders, and stealing drew their white ships with their white sails from lamplit havens. The wind wails, the wolf howls. The ravens flee. The ice mutters in the mouths of the Sea. The captives sad in Angband mourn. Thunder rumbles, the fires burn; and Felagund fell before the dark lord, his sorcery bound by Sauron’s necromancy. Still the elves fought, and hearing the magical voice of Felagund silent, Beren turned from the orcs and decided to destroy the source of the problem. He threw a spear from a fallen orc at the dark lord, and it struck his shoulder, leaving a mighty dent in the armor.  
Then Sauron cast a spell of binding, and they ceased their fighting, and struggled to stay upright. A mighty troll picked up Beren and threw him down on the ground next to Felagund. Sauron then stripped from them their disguise, and they stood before him naked and afraid. The orcs took from them their weapons and armor, and anything that looked like treasure. The ring of Felagund was taken off Beren’s hand by force, as similar heirlooms were stolen from the others. All that was left to them, being too humble to notice, were the seaweed rings of the Aquatic Elf King.  
“Elves and one man,” Sauron observed, “For what fool’s errand have you come here? Do you desire your deaths so much?” But though their kinds were revealed, none wanted to tell Sauron their names or their purposes. “Tell me all that you know, and you shall have my mercy and generosity, if you defy me, you will work as slaves until your miserable deaths.”  
He also had in mind to discover from each one whatever he might know, and said, “Think you that I will wait forever? Nay, my patience has quick limits, and unless one of you shall straight away tell me of your mission and intent, I shall use greater force. I will slay you cruelly, have no doubt. Which of you will be the first to die for the recalcitrance of your fellows? Tell me now, and none of you need die. Hold your tongues, and one of you perishes tomorrow morning, just before the sun rises.” None spoke, as none would bend; Beren and the Elven Companions for loyalty, while Semaj held his tongue from being watched.   
Upon being brought before Sauron, looking around at the zombies and orcs, Semaj was afraid, and did not feel any loyalty to the king. Nor did he care about oaths or Beren’s quest. Therefore, he fell upon his knees and begged for mercy, and told the dark lord all that he knew. He spoke endlessly of Beren, Finrod, Celegorm, Curufin, and the mission and dissension at Nargothrond. He told of the Silmarils, their quest, and Beren’s love for Luthien, Felagund’s love for Beren, and Thingol’s foolish dictum. Sauron grinned in wicked glee when the truth was so easily divulged to him, as it brought together for him into a coherent pattern all the half-truths and stories told to him by his spies. Full of delight, he rewarded this new servant with a space among the other shadow elves. Semaj bowed in gratitude, and following two other elves, who were dressed in black and red, with a spider motif on their sleeves, Semaj left quietly, quite ignoring the disgusted looks and comments from his former companions.  
“Now that one of your companions has folded like a blanket,” Sauron pronounced, satisfied and quite pleased, “The rest of you will remain my prisoners and slaves until such time as you will agree to swear loyalty to me, and then you might join the others of your kind who also work for me.”  
Felagund glared at Sauron, as he reclined on his dark throne smiling broadly, still clad in black armor, as their hands were bound, and they were led away by other elves with spider motifs and webbing on their uniforms. Although some of the Companions asked these strange elves why they cooperated with evil, they were given no response. Ledrel was so persistent in his shaming and questioning that the spider elves stopped and gagged him. The Companionship realized that they would receive no help or sympathy from these others, and were frightened and disquieted. They had prepared to fight orcs and trolls, to be confronted by their own now willingly in the service of evil worried and surprised them.  
As they were led through the land, Felagund wondered where these elves lived, as all he could see was filth and poverty. Surely the elves did not share these filthy huts with the orcs?  
Looking around at Sauron’s minions and servants, Beren was filled with disgust. His people had long lived and sailed with the aquatic elves in Numenor, and had adopted their styles, manners, and ways. Then they had come to Middle Earth, and lived alongside Felagund’s people. He had never before seen mortal men untouched by the teaching hand of Elves, and was amazed and appalled at their condition. Their hair was filthy and matted, their hands claw-like, and their clothing rudimentary, as they crouched in the dirt, scowling at the Companions as they passed by. Heavy boots and leather garb after the manner of orcs made them appear even more bestial. Their lives were hard, short, and brutish, living in dirty huts like animals in a den, chewing on pieces of raw meat, cheek and jowl with the orcs. Half orcs were abundant, their features a mockery of both Elves and Men. Beren gave a visible shudder upon seeing them, and he thanked the gods on the spot to have been born of the proud race of Numenor.   
Yet the humans retained some elements of animal caring, at least for their young. When Beren walked past the pits where the orcs threw their young, when weaned from milk and ready to begin eating meat, he almost fell over with horror and shock. The babes in the pits would fight and tear one another apart, only the strong surviving; there being no bonds of affection between any of them. They tore at one another, most having oozing wounds and a number of scars. The hideous smell of the orcs was choking.  
The flies were a vaporous daemon pestilence over the orc hovels, to the point where a spider catching one in a web should have been a sight worthy of rejoicing. He also noticed the fleas, which were pervasive, and the spider elves let them stop to scratch, having the same problem themselves. Beren scratched his ankles, the only spot he could conveniently reach with his hands bound behind him. He noticed that the elves suffered far more than he did, the fleas were feasting on sweet elf blood.  
To his horror, an orc grunted and spat, running past them almost upon all fours. Within the jaws of the foul creature, was a small arm. A cry went up among the companions, and the full weight of their plight fell upon them as a dark vaporous smoke before them materialized into the Dark Lord.   
“We need more pits,” Sauron decreed, as the elves unbound the prisoners, leaving them there with Sauron and the orcs. “There isn’t an empty pit to throw you into.” He stood there scowling and watching them, as his orcs handed them rags to wear, and shovels to dig with. The orcs then marched them to a barren patch and ordered them to commence digging and then the Dark Lord had his orcs bring him a throne, upon which he sat comfortably, watching Felagund and his fellows dig themselves a pit to be thrown into. All day they toiled, until nightfall, when the pit was wide and deep enough for the dark lord to consider it sufficient to hold all thirteen of them.   
Sauron studied them as they worked, figuring out who was who, and which were friends. First Sauron thought to corrupt Beren the weak human, after attentively watching his new prisoners and slaves. Excellent, the dark lord thought to himself. He knew just what to threaten him with as well, so as to expedite the process.  
He cast them therefore into the deep pit, dark and silent, which they themselves had just dug, and threatened to slay them cruelly, should they even attempt to escape. Then he cursed them, and ensorcelled them so that their magic and elf sorcery might be ineffective, or their spells to be perverted. They heard above them the rough shouting of orcs, their bickering and arguing, as they cursed at one another. Such foul folk attacked one another over nothing. Orc overlords shouted brutal commands to their underlings, ordering them about and dispensing harsh and arbitrary punishments and judgments.  
As darkness fell under the setting sun, and the orcs returned to their caves and dens, they heard in the distance a drumbeat accompanied by a trumpeting. Elvish voices were raised in song, answered and then accompanied by the lower, louder voices of Men. Unearthly ululations were heard, announcing the heralding of night. The singing and wild shouting continued, becoming louder, and was joined by drums, and a sweet, sickly smell filled the air, and a cloud of sparkling purple settled on everything. As they breathed, the glittering smoke brought the music into their veins, and they started to tap their feet along to it. They felt the urge to sway and sing and dance with the others, but such lyrics as they were hearing!  
“Fight it!” Felagund told them. “It is a massive, group spell, and we are not to be corrupted so easily. Do not let the evil words into your mind!”   
Putting forth all of their effort, they all sang a different song, and rattled their chains so loudly as to interfere with the melody. The party seemed to last all night, with the voices becoming fewer as the hours of early morning came and went. Just before the breaking of dawn, the last of the revelers was silent.   
Just as Sauron had spoke, in the darkest hour before dawn, they saw two eyes kindled in the dark, and a werewolf leapt down upon them. In the blood frenzy of starving under a full moon, the creature ripped at anything near, and seizing Nedrus in its jaws, clawed at him with both front and hind legs, and devoured him, whilst the others cried out in terror and horror at the slaying. Their hearts were steeled against the dark lord, having witnessed the ghastly end of one of their friends.   
After the grisly murder, the sun rose as bright as if it were a just another day. In the morning light, a demoness descended into the pit, letting herself down with a silvery rope. “Good morning!” she sang, in an irritating nasal voice. She was tall and thin, her hair so black that it had blue tones, her eyes dark as midnight, with red pupils. “Water lady!” she called, taking the cap off of a very large water skin. “Drink up,” she said, as though she said this every day, “I will not return until evening.”  
The Companions gazed upon her, until finally Felagund spoke. “Although we are hungry and thirsty, as we have been given nothing after digging this pit, our hearts are filled with despair. Just hours ago, one of our beloved friends was slain by a werewolf. That is why my companions are hesitant of your approach. Who might you be?”  
“I am Vrame,” the demoness said, matter-of-factly. “I suppose this is the first time you have been here, but I talk to hundreds of prisoners, and sometimes I forget new ones are confused. So here is how it works; I have a route I follow, bringing food and water to the prisoners. You can eat or drink, it is up to you, but if you get thirsty later on after not drinking anything, no one will come until I return on my rounds in the evening.” She looked around at their disappointed faces, and added, “Drink up quickly, I have a pit full of dwarves next to you who bray like billy goats and make a ton of noise if they do not get their water soon enough.”  
“This water,” Edrahil asked, “Is it tainted?”  
“How long would slaves work on poisoned water?” the demoness returned his query.  
“We are not accustomed to viewing ourselves as slaves,” Edrahil answered, “And the water tastes old and sour.”  
“You will get used to it,” Vrame said reassuringly, with a dry banality that gave the Companions less hope than any threat from the Dark Lord. “It sits in cisterns, so I dump acid in there to kill the scum.” She had seen hundreds, perhaps thousands, of prisoners come and go, and she had a schedule to keep. “A word to the wise,” she added, in superior, nasal tone, “Drink all the water you can, and eat the breads and fruits when they are offered. Avoid any mystery meats,” she said, raising one eyebrow.  
“Mystery meats?” Beren asked.  
“Jerky, slimy bits in stew…” she said, naming just a few examples. “The orcs usually get the bodies that are twice-dead; or either too mangled or rotted for the Dark Lord to use for anything, but sometimes the cooks just boil it all up together, if you catch the hint.”  
A cry of disgust went up from the Companions, but Felagund asked, “What do you mean by twice-dead?”  
“Oh, Sauron keeps thinking he’s going to reanimate corpses and make them alive again, but it never works. Usually he just makes mindless zombies or the spell fails entirely, rendering the body twice-dead and of a strange consistency.”  
“Why is he doing that?” Felagund asked.  
“I don’t know, but you’ll get the chance to ask him. You’ll be working for him directly today.”  
They decided to chance only the water when Vrame the demoness brought the skin around to each of them. While they were drinking, she continued speaking. “You will be working in pairs of two,” she explained, “I will bring you up from the pit as you are needed.” She looked around, and spotting Felagund and Beren said, “You two are to come first.”  
Felagund sighed and said, “So be it. Give my companions their bread and water, and then we shall follow you.” Vrame nodded, and before she could release the man and the elf’s shackles, and tremendous braying arose from the adjacent pit. “Hurry up,” she fussed at them, and fitting the key into the irons, releasing two of the prisoners, she pointed to the silver rope. “Grab a hold,” she ordered them. Climbing, they found the rope somewhat sticky, like spider webs, and very easy to hold onto. When they had ascended, Vrame took a firm hold of the rope, and rose along it as easily as a spider, drawing it up behind her.  
Somewhere in the distance, horses neighed and real goats bleated in reaction to the dwarves’ unholy din. “Do not think to run away,” the demoness told them. “Insurrection will bring another werewolf upon your companions, so just wait here while I feed these belligerent fellows,” she said, lowering the silver rope into the pit the noise was coming from. It took only a few minutes, and Vrame ascended the pit again, without bringing any dwarves with her. “Come along,” she told them, “My orders are to bring you to the Lord himself, and you will be assisting him in his workshop.”  
Beren and Felagund looked surprised at hearing this, and they gazed in wonder at the demoness. “In what manner of assistance could we possibly render?” Felagund asked.  
“Hauling and loading carts, mostly,” she confided. “Be quiet and work fast,” she told them, “And do try not to speak while he works.” The man and elf nodded, wondering what she meant.  
Another demoness, adorned with a flicking tail and tiny graceful horns arching forth from her brow, sashaying and only partially clothed in a red sash approached them and said to Vrame, “The Lord commands the human to appear before him now.”  
“Will you take him, or must …” Vrame started, but the other demoness cut her off.  
“You do it,” the horned demoness snarled, “All you do all day is walk around with a pouch of water. Why should I be responsible for the mortal?”  
Vrame visibly bristled at this, not liking the criticism of her duties, but held her tongue, leading Beren and Felagund to the hall of the Dark Lord, whereupon he kept his grandeur and throne. “We are going to wait outside,” she told Felagund, “While Beren goes inside.” Then she opened up the door and motioned for Beren to step inside.  
The hall was vast and dark, lit by thousands of strange, red glowing gems set into the walls. The floor, far from firm, was eerily squishy, and it all smelled heinous, like open graves and sickness. Beren felt the disgusting sensation of having entered something evil’s mouth, and choked as he walked forward, his hands were unbound, but he knew now, from the werewolf’s attack early that morning, what would be the result of any attempts to escape. He paused before the throne of the Dark Lord, who, having taken the form of a man, tall and fair, told Beren, “I am experienced at the art of making unwilling persons voluble.” He paused to study the Numenorean man. “It is not a question of whether you will tell me what I wish to know, but rather of how much I must damage your person before you do.”  
Beren was still thinking of the monster with the small white arm in its mouth, and of this horror he spoke, weeping into his hands. Sauron waited, thinking he would simply sit there until this human spilled something of value or use, but he revealed nothing. He penetrated the man’s brain, and felt that there was something utterly repulsive about the Numenorean that made him anxious to be away from him. He felt as though all the Valar were watching him from the man’s eyes, while the pathetic mortal stood there agonizing over the eating of some scrawny creature. Sauron then felt also the intense pressure of Melian’s scorn, and for an unaccustomed moment, shame. Still the human wept about some arm in an orc’s mouth, speaking of the great sadness he had felt for the child, and for the desecration of life that he saw all around him, and for a second the might of the Valar appeared in the human’s words, and shone upon him from the mind of Melian, bursting forth like a sunbeam into the deep night upon the foul evils stewing in Sauron’s brain, and all that he did, thought, and felt was revealed then to Melian. Sauron recoiled as if from a blow. Then it passed, and Sauron became bored with Felagund’s didactic boyfriend, who like most mortals, knew nothing. He called for the demoness to remove the mortal, and Vrame did so, Felagund following her. Sauron stared at them all and knew; so this was Beor. He was beautiful to look upon, no wonder Felagund had found him again.  
“Take them to the workshop and show them what their chores will be,” he ordered Vrame. “Watch them carefully until I am there myself.” He watched them go. There was more here than met the eye, and long sundered from the song of Illuvatar, he knew not what was occurring in the timeline of eternity. The information had gone one way only. Melian knew all that was in his mind, but he knew none of hers. He thought carefully, and now purposed to spy upon the Valar through these two, graced as they were with all the blessings of light.  
As they walked, Beren was relieved and amazed to have been released from the sight and intense scrutiny of the Dark Lord, though he had a sinking feeling there would be more to come. Once out of the hall and into the smoky daylight, they followed the demoness, noticing anew as she spoke her very sharp appearing incisor teeth. Much as he would have preferred to dislike Vrame, instead he found her quite pleasant, even quirky and amusing. She talked constantly, and seemed to have the power to pacify anyone with her voice. No matter how grim the situation, she made it sound like the practical solution had been apparent all along, and they had been selfish and childlike not to have seen it themselves. She handed them shovels, they were to start digging another pit, and she would stand there and watch. Even Felagund seemed somewhat influenced by the demoness, and would converse with her while they worked, querying her about various topics. Beren listened as they spoke, while Felagund trying to glean information from the demoness. “You might escape this vile place,” Felagund said. “Why do you serve the most evil of masters, the dark lord Sauron?”  
Vrame was delighted to have such a polite and attentive listener. “It is not Sauron that we serve, but our most great and beautiful Goddess who is most gracious and attentive to us,” And she told him much of the new race of shadow elves, the People of the Spider. “The goddess Arachnae is mother to us all, and through the power of Her blood Her followers are changed.”  
“How does this take place?” Felagund asked, although he suspected he knew the answer.  
“Through Her blood,” Vrame smiled. “Long have we, Her first servants, followed Her. Then she left her home and mother for the tall, dark, handsome one, and we followed Her, and that is how we came to be here. Many of the elves did taste of Her blood as well, and they too now serve Her. We are now all blessed to be Her children, and she is a powerful mother to us all.”  
“So you are not in the service of the Dark Lord, but rather his consort?”  
“Yes,” the demoness explained. “Would you like to meet Her? I am certain Arachnae would be glad to count you among her servants.”  
Not having the strength to battle a goddess, Felagund politely declined the offer. He wondered if perhaps he could break the goddess’ spell over her followers, but he needed to see more and understand what they were, before he could make a plan. He had clearly heard the sound of fanaticism in Vrame’s voice, and he knew absolute devotion and zealotry were powerful weapons. Beren took some small comfort in their conversation, as it drowned out the other sounds. When he looked up at the sky and heard their voices, sometimes he was home again, as a child, or wandering in the woods with Luthien, and just as his mind had blanked out all the unpleasantness, some foul sound, as an orc growl or howling ogre would bring him back, and his heart would fall into his knees, that he was still here. Then he went back to paying attention to digging.

Sauron thought carefully to himself, after his strange experience with the Numenorean, that he did not want any more unpleasant surprises, so after Vrame had left with the first two, he sent his orcs to bring the nervous elf who had betrayed his companions so readily to him. Of course, they failed, bringing him the wrong elves, and so he had the orcs throw them back into the pit, and sent Vrasne the she-demon to fetch Semaj. Vrasne had no such confusion, and so easily brought forth the erstwhile traitor. Half demoness and half ogress, Vrasne was larger than the other demonesses, and so had no trouble at all holding on to Semaj. There were tears in the elf’s eyes as he contemplated what lay before him, and he wished he had run away when the entire business about a quest had even been brought up.   
But to his surprise, Sauron did not ask him of their quest, as he had already told all. Now he was queried about the other shadow elves, demonesses, and what Semaj thought of them. Most of all, he wanted to discern if his consort Arachnae was up to some sort of treachery. He suspected she was. 

So Semaj told Sauron of strange new experiences with the dark elves. Few trees left, the spider elves had suspended their nest-like dwellings from cliffs and hillsides. Made from a silken rope stronger than steel, woven into suspended homes and bridges, ladders and swings, Semaj had realized these were the nicest accommodations to be found, and easily accepted his fate. He was admiring the ingeniousness and craftsmanship of the suspended elf encampments, and asked his new companions how it had come to be.  
“What else is there?” the elf responded. “We cannot sleep upon the ground, orcs and other foul beasts will eat us in our sleep.”  
“Who makes this rope, and of what substance is it?” Semaj asked.   
“Our spider-women,” the other elf smiled. Full of curiosity, Semaj followed the other elf across rope bridges and ladders, listening to the other elf, Zyl, explain that they were only here temporarily, working for Sauron in exchange for gold. “We await the day when the goddess, Arachnae, gives the call, and then we will leave this befouled place, and have a beautiful new fairyland of our own to call home.”  
The spider-women proved to be female demons, able to take the shape of elves or spiders, and their magic impressed the newcomer greatly. They could cast a silvery web at will, and use it to travel from place to place. The new diet disturbed him at first, but he quickly became used to drinking the endless cups of blood or brackish tea. He discovered the water was so bad they were obliged to first boil it and then add whatever flavoring they could, or drink the slimy water Vrame gave to the slaves. With their meals, they would complain endlessly about the conditions, and speak of their preparations for the Calling. After their evening meal, they would sing and dance, swinging from their magical ropes and the demonesses casting spells of faerie fire, sparkling lights that moved about upon their own, and were able to take the form of whatever the caster desired. The nights he loved. First the singing began, and they all joined hands together under the stars, and sang love songs to their goddess, who would then appear. Arachnae would choose her companions for the evening, and the most favored among them had become vampires, having tasted of her blood. It was the greatest blessing she bestowed, and they all desired it. Then they would dance, and swing from silken ropes, as they all breathed in the magic of Arachnae’s spell, which was like wine and wizard’s smoke, all in a lovely, lavender sparkling cloud.   
Sauron hid his anger as the elf continued his rapturous tale of good fortune and delight, dancing the night away to the music and breathing in the magical smoke. His eyes sparkled when he described how beautiful the spider goddess was. So Arachnae was plotting against him! 

The lavender, sparkling cloud was Arachnae’s very own spell. She found that she had learned so much since leaving home! Let Grandmother Spider continue to weave the world’s webs and cut the threads of life, they didn’t really need her to sit there and spin straw into gold unceasingly, until the end of time. Besides, when the handsome Maiar spirit had come calling, seeking his fortune and more, she had found something much more interesting than the endless skeins of life threads. She was the Maiden, not the Mother or the Crone. Arachnae could not imagine Mother or Grandmother Spider ever having been anything other than what they were, and nor did she wish to become like them. They cast the same spells over and over, as the days became years, then centuries, and finally eons. Arachnae had quickly enough lost interest in that, and when Sauron came to the Hall of Webs, in a form most fair to behold, she was overcome with an urge to be with him, and his words were like magical water that carried her away to somewhere as yet unknown, and different from everything she had known.   
“Youth desires the adventure and brightness, and thinks that the elders know only the wisdom of days gone by, and therefore listens not. This handsome stranger whom you have given your heart to is not all that he seems. There will come to you great temptation,” Grandmother Spider said to her, “And with you will lie the fates of many.”  
But Arachnae chose not to heed the dull words of her grandmother, which were as always, cryptic and difficult to follow, like figuring the angles of a web, or deconstructing the words of the Ancients. The fate of many had always lain in their hands. That was what they did; spin life threads, weave them together, and cut them.  
“Take my hand,” Sauron said to her, with the lovelight shining in his eyes, “And say you will follow me. I desire to have you there beside me, and together we shall rule the material earth. We will have gold, adventures, and live in a palace of great majesty, and you will be freed from this tiresome working, working, working.”  
“I will follow you,” she answered in rapture. How much more pleasant he was to look upon than the old women, her mother and grandmother, whom she had spent every waking moment with. “And thank you,” she added, looking askance at the heaps of thread, unwoven yarn, metal threads and wool. It was eons of work, all the same; the endless spinning, spinning, spinning.  
“Ugh,” he shuddered, looking at the unending piles of sewing chores heaped around, then quickly turning away from Grandmother Spider’s lair.   
And taken her away he had, under the clever guise of darkness, so that although they caused a disturbance in the Great Web, Mother and Grandmother Spider did not even notice she was gone until the following morning, so busy were they in repairing the rent in space and time. They wept and cried upon learning she had left them, and they vowed to find her. Thus the lives of Men and Elves were fewer and shortened, that not only had Arachnae left and was not spinning new ones, but Grandmother Spider and her daughter also left their skeins and webs, to search in vain for Arachnae. To compensate for the times they spent away from their work, they simply cut, rather than spin any more.  
The time Arachnae spent with Sauron in Valinor was magical, and as she met Elves and Maia, she began to regret all the time she had already wasted in the cloister with her mother and grandmother. The lands she saw before her were so beautiful it made her want to weep. Although she knew the fates of those she spoke to, because their lives had been woven at her hands, she thought that perhaps it might all yet be different.  
As they walked among the gods and Elves, she began to suspect that all was not as her lover claimed it was, and that his fair words disguised something more sinister. Beneath his sweet words was an agenda, and his master, Melkor, was nothing but competition for the time of her mate, and she began to hate him. Melkor lusted after the Silmarils, three fantastic diamond- like jewels that were wrought by magic, and yet they were more than gems, they were as living beings and shone and spoke with a life of their own. She was fascinated with them, as well, but the curses, swords and spears of Feanor, his brothers, and sons were more than adequate to dissuade her from attempting to take one of them. She had an accurate perception of the ensnaring nature of the Curse of Mandos had no desire to become trapped within that web.  
Then she thought that what had been done by one could be done by others. Why stop at three jewels, she thought, when their brilliance could light an entire land? It was then that she first thought of the mystical, magical land deep within the earth that she herself might rule, with interference by none. Looking back at the Silmarils, she knew she only needed one such replicated jewel, then she could light her new land with the brilliance of the Two Trees, and it would be as it had been when the world was first formed. In this land, she needed a people, who would be Her children. She was tired of being the eternal Maiden, and wanted a place and people of her own to rule, rather than spend eternity spinning the lives of others for her mother to decide, and for Grandmother to decree and finally to end. Arachnae wanted a new people of her very own, that she alone had control over, and who would worship her as the Elves of Valinor venerated the Valar. She was a goddess, also, and as such would weave threads of pure gold and silver for Her chosen people. Inspired, she left the company of Sauron and his master Melkor to spin. Using the magic of the Fates, she created an enormous web in which she placed three jewels, and from these, she wove her first servants. With all her imagination and desire, she turned them from pretty stones into the likenesses of women, and they were living, breathing things who wondered at their own creation and spoke to her. The first were like the Elves, in form and appearance, and she named them as she created them. They made her proud and happy, these first creations; and she felt like a mother. They were only three, and she fell in love with them. She promised them great things and they embraced her in adoration and then went among the Elves, to speak happily of their Mother, and her noble purposes.  
Feeling then more inspired, and wanting to make her creatures unique, she wove life into demonesses with horns and tails, and succubi with wings and faces as lovely as any Elves or spirits. Then with a tiny, chipped jewel left until last, she created the first of the mortal Witches; and she was as a fair maiden of the Edain as any had ever seen before, with rose red lips and sparkling hair of gold, such as the great princes of the Noldor. Then she beheld her own creations, and was filled with joy at their beauty, and of her own brilliance, and she thought them finer than any made by Illuvatar. Thus she sang to them, her children, of her love and welcomed them to the world.  
Her succubi, shadow elves, witches, and demonesses worshipped her, as Creator, Mother, and Goddess, as she felt they should. The demonesses she brought with her to the lair of her mate, Sauron, and there they were to do her will. The succubi she sent to roam the ethereal plane and the Dreamworld, purveying her will. The witch she sent among the Edain, giving her powers greater than any other mortals, and waited for the mightiest of the first witch’s children to come back to her. They did, growing ever in power. Thus did she thrill at the thought of the web tips of Grandmother Spider, and fancied herself great, as her creations, her children, were more beautiful and powerful than any others created by Illuvatar or ordained by Grandmother Spider. Full of pride, she showed Sauron her children, and danced with them in the moonlight. To her surprise, he was jealous, rather than appreciative and happy for her, and he refused to dance with them. Instead, he became angry. So she ignored his sullenness, refusing to see it for the beginnings of treachery that it truly was, and told him that he was lucky to have her, as she was greater than he was. Then he became truly enraged and marched off into the darkness.  
From the calls of her mother and grandmother, however, she fled. When they searched for her, she hid behind the arts of Sauron, that they not discover her and drag her home to the dull cave of the Fates, to sort skeins, weave threads, and connect the webs forever. Secrets they wove, and secrets they kept, and in so doing bound one another closer. Sometimes Arachnae wondered if what she was doing was also planned, part of what Grandmother Spider had already known, but she bristled at the thought. Was nothing free, even thought? Even more than their thoughts, she hid from their love and the guilt that went with it. The thought that she was shirking her duty and disappointing her mother was a whirlpool of cold despondency that she threw off at the soonest hint of being yoked to it. She was to create a new race of Elves; fairer and more powerful, as her own blood and time went into them. As such, she needed no interference.  
But Sauron did not share her desire to create a new race dwelling in a magical fairyland hidden from all view; he wanted an army, a force mighty enough to overtake Valinor and Middle Earth. In the shadows did he labor, unseen by any but Melkor, as he tricked and abducted both Elves and Edain, and created loathsome forms of life, as foul as the Elves were fair. Instead of weaving and giving birth to treasured child-servants, Sauron created slaves. Arachnae found these creatures disgusting, would not abide these hideous things in her presence, and quarreled with her consort. He laughed at her endless ministrations and labors in creating less than twenty servants, one mortal, when he had almost an army! He laughed in her face, and she was filled with a sudden fury and loathing towards him.   
Arachnae looked out from her lofty web at the unholy disaster underneath, and heard the complaints of her ladies. The demonesses, vampires, and newly converted elves and men were not happy in this land of filth and privation, and her three first Elves wept at being taken from Valinor and into this squalor. Something would have to be done and soon, but she knew, by looking at the anchor points on her webs, that the time was close at hand, so she placated them, and told them to wait. They fussed and complained, but they obeyed, and returned to their assigned tasks. She returned, however, of her first thoughts about the Silmarils and lighting a great underground city, and thus she told her ladies that such a place awaited them. Then she set about creating it.  
She recruited the Dwarves to aid her, in the creation of this fantasy land of faerie magic, and she extolled them in their wonderous works of stone. They were the only ones who could make her dream land a reality, and she promised them gold and glory. Gladly, they took her first offerings of gold, and set to work on the fairyland she had conjured in their minds. Long did they labor in creating the finest, sturdiest, and most beautiful of buildings and bridges. They were enthralled with her descriptions of the Silmarils, and worked ceaselessly to create something similar themselves. Although they created magnificent jewels that glowed with their own light, none were as magnificent as the Silmarils. It was these beautiful gems that they used to light the great, glittering cavern where the city was being created.  
Then, also among her ladies, she let it be known that the dwarves were building this great fairyland for her, and that the finest houses would go to her ladies who could afford them, and who had pleased her the most. Thus began the bloody competition of devotion and treachery that poised demoness against demoness, and elf against elf. Time and again in her weaving, the weft and shuttle would break when she came to a certain point, and then she looked more carefully upon it. Something would happen there, she was certain of it. She could not ask her mother or grandmother, as that would alert them immediately to where she was and what she was doing. Time itself had cast a spell upon her and upon them, and as she left their sides, they took to doing her job, and this added labor took all of their time. They called for her, sometimes, during the storms of the night where their labors were on hold, but she still hid from them, preferring her own path to the one they had preordained for her. Occasionally, in the dark loneliness of Tol Guargaroth where she looked down in despondency upon the wreck of civilization that her mate had wrought, and in which her children walked through orc filth and misery, she almost went home. Almost, but not quite, for the shame of failure was worse than the stench of the pits and Sauron’s workshops.   
Arachnae learned early on that Men desired power, while Elves desired pleasure and knowledge. She combined these things together, and gave each devotee at least one individual meeting, where he or she would be granted an exclusive moment with the goddess, and know his or her destiny. Her followers were utterly devout, it was their will and joy to serve her, taking great risks and enduring much for only the possibility of her personal attention. Elf mothers were devoted to their children, and whether elven or half-elf, half-human, or part demon, they raised their little ones under the auspices of the spider goddess, and promises of a great, enchanted, fantastical fairyland they would one day call their own, far beneath the living earth.

But Sauron wanted an army with which to conquer and rule the land, not an assemblage of devotees to play off against one another in endless flights of fancy and deception. He wanted power, control, and revenge. As of yet, all he had succeeded in creating en masse was orcs, as they bred quickly and easily. Of other creatures, he had far less success. Trolls and ogres required tremendous amounts of body mass, both to create and to keep fed. Zombie trolls and ogres, however, held the sort of promise Sauron liked. An army of zombies required neither food nor sleep, and being undead, were undefeatable unless completely hacked apart. Yet, he failed more often with reanimation than with initial creation. It irritated him that his consort Arachnae created creatures easily, and that she scorned his pitiful efforts, and sometimes told him to give up, and just be her mate. His aspirations of power were never going to succeed anyway, she would say. Her grandmother had never mentioned or planned a land ruled by orcs. Such talk only made Sauron angrier at her, and peeved at paying her women for their work. He hated parting with precious gold and silver for the labors of the dark elves and demonesses. He was even more irritated by their constant babbling about how wonderful and great Arachnae was while they worshipped her, and their endless talk of how they would have some magical elven city she was making for them.

Every day, the spider demoness Vrame would release and draw up the prisoners, two by two, to assist in the Dark Lord’s work, as there were not enough slaves, and the loud, stupid orcs irritated their lord with their course words and vibrations when he was busy with deep sorcery. The work they were tasked with was mostly mindless labor, for which Sauron endeavored to produce zombies, but the magic seldom held and they fell over or fell apart.   
Felagund and Beren were the first ones brought up from the pit, early in the morning by the demoness, at Sauron’s order, and she led them to his workshop. This was where it all took place, the desecration of creation. He had a menagerie of death; corpses and carcasses everywhere; boiling pots, hanging skins, and dismembered body parts in heaps. They were sights that no man or elf had ever conceived of before, nor did they have words to repeat. There Sauron worked like a butcher in the midst of his gory wares, while Beren and Felagund stared in horrified stupor at the levity with which he began every day. His complete disregard for life and decency was utterly repellent in every way.   
Sauron would reassemble and attempt to reanimate the bodies, hoping always for the perfect, undying slave-warrior, proceeding with a morbid and ghoulish curiosity, and a secret sense of charnel picturesqueness. His interest was a hellish and perverse addiction to the repellent and fiendishly abnormal; he gloated calmly over artificial monstrosities which would make most healthy men drop dead from fright and disgust. “No rework!” was his mantra, and a goal he never achieved.  
He had a mind to rule it all, and before he could conquer, he required an army. Ogres were bloodthirsty but stupid and argumentative, they were useful only in large numbers for specific battles. Orcs were cannon fodder. Men lived longer than orcs, and his plan to interbreed orcs and Men was successful past anything he could have imagined. While human men did not find orc women attractive, orcs would breed with anything, and Sauron found to his delight that even the most ignorant human women would tend their young; they never threw their babes into the orc pits, even when they found themselves saddled with a half-orc child, they would try to teach it to be human, and in the process created the half-orcs that were among his most versatile and useful servants.   
Orc mothers let their babies starve or eat the numerous flies or ubiquitous spiders. The spiders being easier to catch and representing as they did the feared and envied shadow elves and demonesses, the orclings were always foraging amid the filth.  
His experiments in half-orc half-elves were considerably less successful, as an elf male would kill himself before he would breed with an orc. One had severed and then choked to death on his own big toe rather than touch an orc female, and the elven females would usually sicken and die after being mated to an orc. Yet both would mate with humans; he wondered if he could capture the special abilities of the elves within his army by mating half elves with half orcs; it gave him much to think about.   
Greater success at creating a devoted following among the elves had been achieved by his consort, Arachnae. Her demonesses mixed freely with the captured elves, turning the prisoners away from their former lives. They talked endlessly about some magical fairyland that they would all be moving to, and something about that made him uneasy, as though there were an important secret Arachnae was keeping from him. He relied on her demonesses and shadow elves, as they were the most intelligent and capable of servants. He was always acutely aware, however, that they did not serve him, they served her, and labored for him only for pay. Gold and jewels they demanded, or raw magical energy. The energy he was loathe to give them, and of gems he had but few, so he parted with his gold, and as little of it as possible.   
He recognized the Elf King, he was Finrod Felagund, son of Finarfin, and a valuable slave, Sauron gloated. He wondered what to do with him and his companions, and at first, he had thought that he recognized the human man, but humans did not live that long, did they? This boy must be Beor’s kin; probably the son of Barahir. After all, mortal men waxed and waned quickly, like the passing seasons. Sauron wondered, as the new slaves stood before him, awaiting orders. No, he corrected himself, this was clearly Beor’s spirit returned to do whatever foolishness these creatures busied themselves with. Then he thought, back to business. He certainly was not about to let these two near the foundry where they were making weapons, and he wanted to supervise them closely. They were looking around them, the slack jawed yokels, at the piles of spare parts, sorted according to type and race.   
“What are you waiting for?” Sauron shouted at them. “Start matching up parts! We will be making zombies today; legs even in length; parts in proportion; go!” Felagund and Beren looked at each other in dismayed disgust, and then began their distasteful task of assembling balanced zombies from the salvaged body parts of corpses. If it were intact and fresh, Sauron took it for his grisly experiments in reanimation, and the mangled parts went into the huge stew pots. If it were befouled or rotten, it became orc food. They dragged the various corpses of elves, men, orcs, dwarves, goblins, and rarer races they could not identify at a glance into piles. While Sauron would try to reanimate men and elves whole if the corpse were not too damaged, the majority were missing pieces. “Don’t mix elf and orc without a human part in between!” the Dark Lord ordered them, after seeing Beren pair an elven leg with a lone orc foot.   
While they worked, Sauron watched them as well as animating his zombies. Moaning, shuffling corpses left the gruesome hall with orders to wait outside, the Dark Lord more interested in observing the man and the elf work. They moved in perfect rhythm, like twin soldiers. Sauron said nothing, but it burned within his mind.   
Beren was horrified, watching the experimentation of the dark lord in soul-shattering disgust and terror. Utterly contemptuous of life, Sauron labored long in his demonic workshop, casting spells, carefully sewing extremities to limbs, refining the necromancer’s art, laboring to create his own beings; animating his zombies. Both man and elf fought madness, locked as they were, in a room with the Dark Lord himself, ankle-deep in blood and lesser bodily debris on the slimy floor; and with hideous reptilian abnormalities sprouting, bubbling, and baking over a winking bluish-green spectre of dim flame in a far corner of black shadows.   
Upon being called forth, galvanized into morbid, unnatural and brainless motion, the corpses would emit unwholesome noises, moving in heavy, leaden shuffles, some nearly on all fours. They were hideous, zombie-like creatures, some of which had once been elves and men; now foul, moldy and caked with blood; chewing upon one another or whatever else they might find.  
“Pathetic, are they not?” Sauron demanded of the elf.  
“An abomination,” Felagund agreed, wondering what was about to happen.  
“These will never an army make,” the dark lord fumed. He wanted double-duty from his slaves, and kicked a glassy eyed zombie in the back and out the door. There was an abundance of defective reanimation, and elves were particularly difficult. Their physiology was just as fine and delicate as their souls, and they began to fall apart quickly after death. Arachnae turned them into undead creatures before they had died, by giving them her blood, and changing them into elven sorcerers she called vampires. They were nothing like his vampires, gruesome and dripping blood as they flew. Hers were elegant, and maddeningly beautiful. To become one of her vampires was the ultimate goal of all of her followers. They begged, worshipped, followed her around, they did everything possible to gain her attention and affection. Yet her chosen were few, and vied for her affections with her top demonesses and shadow elves; her original children. Thus she played them off of one another, in her web of control. He watched what she did, but she took too long to get anything done, if she ever did get anything done, he thought. He needed an army, not a group of high-maintenance women who wanted money, mates, jewels, and lavish homes. Then Sauron stopped and realized something; Did Arachnae and her top women do anything useful? He felt a moment of disquiet that made him suspicious of her. Some of her human and dark elf males were excellent guards for his purposes, and did their duties with competence and precision, and some of her demonesses labored for him, caretaking the slaves. But did they have any loyalty to him, he wondered.  
The ghoulish labors went from morning light until it was too dark to see. Sometimes Sauron would work by firelight, or the eerie glow from his red stones. Each day he rose to create his army of undead, and every night he was frustrated by the lack of success.  
“I know now,” Beren said, when he and Felegund were throwing body parts into a cart, “How innocent I was before. There are days when I can barely remember that old life, scouting on the hills of evergreens and brush, for sight of our enemies. It seems so many years ago, and there are times when my lady seems like a mirage too magical to be true, although our love remains constant, like my friendship with you. These hours we spend in carnage with the dark craven spirit eat away at us, and you know this as much as I do.”  
“I do,” Felagund said, “I sometimes wonder what happens to the hours when they come for accounting to the gods. At times as I look around, I wonder if there are any others with hearts and souls that yet yearn for the tranquility that we once knew.”  
“Now, you are my teacher, and my guide,” Beren said softly. “Set the outer world aside, and let the gods care for the ethereal planes. I and your men need you now.”   
“Silence!” Sauron ordered them. “Less talk, more work! Your prattle disturbs my concentration!”  
Their labor was long and exhausting, physically and emotionally. When evening came and Sauron ordered them back to their pit, they went with the demoness without a fuss, too tired to complain, and weary of their grisly tasks. Sometimes Beren pretended it was all just a demonic fantasy from which he would eventually wake, and then dropped back into the pit, as the demoness would place them back in their chains, he would try to meld into the earth, but found it the charnel bowels of a putrescent earth; that he was loathe to enter or take into as a part of himself. Being in the fields of Menegroth with Luthien had been like becoming one of the great tree roots, nestled in the good, green and brown earth. The ground he now found himself in was befouled with blood and gore. Becoming one with it meant taking their putrescent entrails into himself, and he found that he simply could not do it, even when Felagund fought the sorcery of Sauron that held them fast, and Beren was able to slip free for a moment to try his own powers.   
Beren and Felagund were Sauron’s preferred laborers; unlike the others, they worked well together according to his instructions, thus reducing the number of times Sauron needed to shout orders at them. In addition, he could observe and listen to them, still hoping to discern the true purpose of their mission without any effort on his part, and while obtaining the maximum labor out of them. He hoped they might fight and argue with one another, and thus reveal themselves, but ever they helped and were always considerate of each other. Felagund, being the elder and the quicker, would catch Beren if he were to slip on the gore-slick floor before he could land on it. In gratitude, Beren would throw the last pieces into the cart, and let the elf rest. Try as he might, Sauron had no discernment for why they did what they did.   
But Sauron possessed another room, a storeroom of sorts, full of bottles, where the souls and anime of his victims were stored. Ever he tried to press them into new bodies; or into service as discorporate beings. Some would groan and wail upon being pulled from their bottles; some vanished like smoke, dissolving. Around his neck, Sauron wore a series of amulets and charms; some were the condensed souls of his most cherished enemies, kept close indeed. In his pocket, he kept a black metal one, with a red spider and strong magical runes on the outside and inside of the bottle, strong enough to hold the divine, to hold a goddess. This one he kept secret in case he should ever need it; this one was for Arachnae.   
One afternoon, to break up the frustrating and often unfruitful routine of zombie animation, he showed Beren and Felagund his reptiles. Eggs and hatchlings, juvenile reptiles and other dragon-like creatures were kept in the blood rich environment of the laboratory. Both man and elf stared at the artificial hatchery where the fire drakes were made. The gore of the workroom floor suited the reptiles well, and when Sauron let them loose, they lapped at the blood and bodily fluids left for them, before the rats could sneak their fair share. Then the orcs would eat the rats, and the older dragons would eat the orcs and zombies, and thus were his great Wyrms grown.  
Here were some of his greatest accomplishments. Here he kept his flightless drakelings, his ancient things well nurtured upon the blood of the living. He had also there snakelike birds whom he had revived from the ancient shadows of memory, and given new life to, in birds’ eggs. They hatched and cawed for nourishment. The sight was both awesome and hideous. These ancient winged monsters, called forth by sorcery from the distant past screeched for the flesh of the day, whatever that may be. Felagund and Beren stared in numb horror, the common root of ancestral memories of elves and men striking a mutual root of instinctive terror. At seeing those grasping claws and beaks breaking forth from eggs and feasting upon blood, they threw their arms around one another and prayed devoutly that Illuvatar might see this horror and save them from the monstrosities that crawled forth at them. Sauron saw the man and elf hugging one another in fear and laughed in merriment. So the king of elves and the scion of the proudest house of men had shivered and cried like little girls at his snake tank. He chuckled to himself, and decided to show them the pens later.   
Day after day Beren was horrified, watching the experimentation of the dark lord, fascinated as Sauron was by the moment the soul left the body, and making it return after death. He spent days in hideous experimentation. Some of the corpses had become zombies, who shambled around in an unnatural fashion, rotting as they went, sometimes emitting grotesque noises in imitation of speech.  
Utterly contemptuous of life, Sauron worked to create his own beings; and sought ever to refine the necromancer’s art. Blood was the medium with which he worked his magic. He drained it and stored it, along with souls. There were bottles upon the high shelves of his work area, with the spirits of his victims trapped within, set neatly next to bottles of the victim’s own blood. Thus he could bind the spirit with its own blood, and condemn it to whatever existence he wished.   
On yet another morning, Beren and Felagund had been pulled up from the pit and led back to the evil-smelling and looking workshop, for another day of back-breaking, revolting tasks. Sauron wielded the knife, as he barely trusted Felagund with a bucket. He began the grisly task of draining human blood into two heavy buckets, which he ordered Felagund to carry to the stables, and Beren was given the task of lifting a bound bundle of severed giant eagles’ wings. They were exhausted by the time they had carried their burdens all the way to the stables, where the black horses were kept. The horses turned at the elf’s entrance, and greeted both man and elf in the hidden language of animals.   
They nodded in greeting and apology, as none of what they did was by free choice. Today Sauron wanted to make winged steeds, and enjoyed some rare success. Using the blood to bind and start the wings with his own spells, he attached eagles’ wings to the horses. Ugly and ungainly at first, the chimerical creatures dragged their wings and whinnied unhappily rather than fold them up or fly. Many days and much frustrated cursing and reattaching later, the wings seemed to be permanently adhered, and neither falling off nor rotting, and Sauron fancied that he would soon be master of the air and the land. No gate or fortress would stop his army now. Flush with success, he prepared to move on to another task, but he knew better than to leave Beren and Felagund alone with the horses once they were able to fly, so he moved them to less agreeable duties.  
“Back to the workshop!” he ordered them.  
Felagund had quickly become used to the stables, and remarked of Sauron’s workshop when they reentered the evil looking and smelling place, “Not this hell hole again.”  
“What?” the dark lord overheard. “What was that you said? Speak up, slave.”  
“I am not a slave,” the elf king replied.  
“You look like one to me,” Sauron replied, laughing at his own joke, “So get busy!” Then he grinned in maniacal glee at his own supposed cleverness.  
Man and elf sighed and began loading the dead creatures into a cart. The dark lord went over to his shelf, and began to select a project for the day. He was looking at the bottles, and wondering what would happen if he put an elf’s soul in a human body. Maybe that would help preserve the flesh, or even, he thought excitedly, help the zombies remain together longer. Planning his project, he watched the elf and the man work. Tenacious little things, he thought. When they died, their spirits would definitely go in bottles.  
“Why does he make so many of these things?” Beren asked, referring to the enormous pile of dead rabbit-like creatures.  
Sauron overheard them. “For my own table, mortal slaves, and those of my honored chieftains. I certainly do not eat orc slop.”   
Felagund looked defiant, but Beren had become immune to the dark lord’s insults. “What about the rabbit with the duck feet?” he asked, holding it up.  
“Throw it on the pile and get going!”  
They loaded the dark lord’s legomorphic failures into the cart, noticing the unlikely variations of life. Most of the dark lord’s experimentations were dismal failures. He attempted to breed his creatures, most of who had died instead. None had ever bred true; altered rabbits gave birth to normal rabbits. Most of his reanimated creatures were unable to breed at all. Many just fell over for unexplained reasons; or because they had rotted and decayed too much to stay together. Instead of admitting the failure of his reanimation techniques and magic; Sauron vowed under the waning moon to the Valar that he would perfect them.   
That night, as they were led back to the pit by the evil she-demon Vrasne, who was bigger and meaner than most, they passed a group of orcs, and one of them turned towards them and, with his split tongue, stuck both sections of it up his nostrils, and then licked his own eyebrows.  
“Ugh,” Felagund exclaimed in disgust. “I could have gone a lifetime without seeing that.”  
“I could have gone several lifetimes without seeing that,” Beren added.  
“Why are they so revolting?” Felagund asked aloud, knowing it was a rhetorical question.  
“Disgusting is as disgusting does, I suppose,” Beren answered as Vrasne sought to silence him, with whip or arms.  
“Silence!” she ordered them. “You don’t need to talk.”  
She certainly is unpleasant, Beren thought, I wonder when Vrame will return? 

   
From Menegroth to Nargothrond

In the time when Sauron cast Beren into the pit a weight of horror came upon Luthien’s heart; and going to Melian for counsel she learned that Beren lay in the dungeons of Tol-in-Gaurhoth without hope of rescue. Then Luthien, perceiving that no help would come from any other on earth, resolved to fly from Doriath and come herself to him; but she sought the aid of Daeron, who frequently spied on Luthien, and he betrayed her purpose to the King. Then Thingol was filled with fear and wonder; and because he would not deprive Luthien of the lights of heaven, lest she fail and fade, and yet would restrain her, he caused a house to be built from which she should not escape. Not far from the gates of Menegroth stood the greatest of all the trees in the Forest of Neldoreth; and that was a beech forest and the northern half of the kingdom. This mighty beech was named Hirilorn, and it had three trunks, equal in girth, smooth in rind and exceedingly tall; no branches grew from them for a great height above the ground. Far aloft between the shafts of Hirilorn a wooden house was built, and there Thingol planned for Luthien to dwell; the ladders would be taken away and guarded, save only when the servants of Thingol brought her such things as she needed.  
“Luthien, look!” Thingol said with a smile. “Come see what I had made for you!”  
She raised one eyebrow at him when she saw the tree house. Framed as a basic flet, with beams and a porch all around, it was a lovely little A-frame, with windows and shutters, pretty woodwork around the front door, and a tiny balcony off of the second floor. “Father, thank you very much, but I am not a child anymore! I would have loved this back when I was learning my letters, but I have other concerns now.”  
“But I had it made just for you.”  
“Father, I am not a child.”  
Looking slightly offended, he then said, “Just take a quick look; I think you will be surprised.”   
Humoring him, she climbed up the tree and found a fully furnished and functional home, complete with bed, chair and desk, even a woodstove and teapot. There was food, herbs, books upon shelves, and candles to provide light in times of darkness. She looked around, and was about to descend the tree to tell Thingol thank you, when she found the way was shut. Realizing she had been tricked and trapped, she called down, “You cannot keep me here!”   
“I am sorry this is necessary,” the king shouted up the tree, “But I will not have you cavorting around with that human man! Humans are weak, diseased, and short lived. By associating with one, you risk acquiring their ailments!”  
“I love him and I will marry him.”  
“For the last time, you will not! I will find someone suitable, and that is that!”  
“How can you justify your position?” she asked with incredulity. “You married far above your station in life, and Mother gave up much to be with you; all the glory and lights of Valinor. Why, have you ever wondered? For love, that is why! Yet you, of all people, point downwards at me! Have you never wondered why Mother approves of my union?”  
“She does not!” Thingol shouted up the tree angrily. “No one does! Now I will choose a fine, suitable husband for you, and you will forget about the lowly, short-lived human, who in all likelihood has probably died already!” So saying, he set a spell about the perimeter of the treehouse; one to confine spirits. Thus she could not leave her body there and visit the Numenorean in spirit. Nor could his spirit, if the mortal knew how, find Luthien. The Wall of Thingol existed as an eerie, rosy glow. It had no evil feel, for it was only a wall. Thingol too, had learned much from living with Melian. Then he went away from the tree, feeling pleased with his handiwork. Luthien watched him go, and wondered what he must be telling himself.  
Luthien waited for a few days, and then she grew tired of hoping her father would come to his senses. However, he had ensorcelled the area against her. She found blockages of a confounding nature, and it frustrated her greatly, until three of her ladies came to the base of the tree. Sami and Ondria distracted the guards with their flirting, while Elisa set a spellbook in the basket and hoisted it up. It was an act and a gift Luthien had not expected. Then the ladies ran off without waiting to be thanked.  
Luthien’s ladies knew the contents of her bookshelf, and what spellbook might be of aid to her in her current plight. She reread the book all night by the light of several candles, and come sunrise the next morning, an idea had come to her, and she knew what to do.  
She then put forth all her arts of enchantment, and caused her hair to grow to great length, and of it she wove a dark robe that wrapped her beauty like a shadow, and it was laden with a sleep spell of great power. Of the strands that remained she twined a rope. For then she began to sing a song of sadness and complaining. It was a long song, and went on for days, until the guards wearied of the nonstop unhappiness and grumbling, calling her Our Lady of Perpetual Complaining, and had stopped their ears with wax to avoid hearing the endless laments. Then using a magical rope she had made of tree branches and her own hair, she let it down from her window; and as the end swayed above the guards that sat beneath the tree they fell into a deep slumber. Then Luthien climbed from her prison, and shrouded in her shadowy cloak she escaped from all eyes, and vanished out of Doriath, the whole while leaving her echo for them to hear, endlessly repeating her songs. She fled under the canopy of the forest, pausing only briefly at the boulder in the meadow. Beren had lain there for weeks, and then risen. Alone, he had left for Nargothrond. It had been many days since he had been there, but she followed his trail as surely as a shadow follows its source. Moving as a moonbeam across the earth, silently and invisible, she moved toward Nargothrond at great speed. 

It chanced that Celegorm and Curufin went on a hunt through the Guarded Plain; and this they did because Sauron, being filled with suspicion, sent forth many wolves into the Elf-lands. Therefore they took their hounds and rode forth; and they thought that ere they returned they might also hear tidings concerning King Felagund. Now the chief of the wolfhounds that followed Celegorm was named Huan. He was not born in Middle-earth, but came from the Blessed Realm; for Orome had given him to Celegorm long ago in Valinor, and there he had followed the horn of his master, before evil came. Huan followed Celegorm into exile, and was faithful; and thus he too came under the doom of the woe set upon the Noldor, and it was decreed that he should meet death, but not until he encountered the mightiest wolf that would ever walk the world.   
Huan it was that found Luthien flying like a shadow surprised by the daylight under the trees, when Celegorm and Curufin rested a while near to the western eaves of Doriath; for nothing could escape the sight and scent of Huan, nor could any enchantment stay him, and he slept but lightly and seldom, by night or day.   
As she ran through the forest following paths seldom trodden; their appeared before her a massive wolfhound. The hound spoke and said, “You who are a stranger in our land, state your business.”  
“Great hound of Valinor, it is I, Luthien, and I ask for your forbearance and assistance. Take me if you will, to your king.”  
“It is not within my authority to do so,” Huan answered, “So I will take you to my masters.”  
“Very well,” she agreed, following Huan. The hound led her by the straightest path to a quiet woodland glen, where two elves and two horses rested beneath the branches. All turned at Huan and Luthien’s approach.  
“Who might you be?” Celegorm asked the cloaked figure.  
“A lady who seeks your aid,” was the answer. “Who might you be?”  
“I am Celegorm, and this is my brother Curufin, two of the sons of Feanor. For what purpose do you run like a shadow through the woods?”  
“For the love of Beren, son of Barahir, who has passed this way,” she explained.  
Huan watched patiently, he had brought her to Celegorm, and Luthien, learning that he was a prince of the Noldor and a foe of Morgoth, was glad; and she declared herself, casting aside her cloak. So great was her sudden beauty revealed beneath the sun that Celegorm became enamoured of her; but he spoke her fair, and promised that she would find help in her need, if she returned with him now to Nargothrond. By no sign did he reveal that he knew already of Beren and the quest, of which she told, nor that it was a matter which touched him near.   
Celegorm invited her to ride with him upon his horse, and she did so willingly, thinking that they should rouse the people, and that a rescue of Beren, the king, and their people should be attempted immediately. Together, they would defeat Sauron once and for all, setting free the captives and destroying the stronghold of evil. Then, rallying all the free peoples of Middle Earth they would rid the world of evil forever, before it might grow any stronger. Such were her thoughts and words as they rode along.  
Thus they broke off the hunt and returned to Nargothrond, and Luthien set aside her Quest momentarily. Surely these people could be roused to save their king and kinsmen. She looked with interest at the elven city, and the people marveled at her beauty as they rode by.  
“Follow me, my lady,” Celegorm said, “You are weary and would enjoy tea and a rest.”  
At his words, Luthien did feel tired, and a warm drink would be welcome indeed, and they could discuss the matter at hand. She followed him through the beautifully carved jewel-toned walls of Nargothrond, and Luthien marveled at it. She had never before left Doriath, and was fascinated by this other elven city. Looking at everything they passed, yet ever mindful of her true purpose, she accompanied the brothers through their city.   
Now Celegorm and Curufin well knew that Luthien was the daughter of Melian, and as such was a powerful sorceress all by herself. For such a plan as they had hatched in their heads, only the strongest spells would do; and failure might be disastrous for them on many levels. So they led her to a pleasant room with soft furnishings and gave her a welcome cup of tea. “Rest here awhile my lady,” Curufin told her, “As there are things we must attend to, but shall very quickly return.”  
Luthien nodded and waited quietly, feeling a little sleepy after her long journey and escape. Days now, she had been awake, weaving her cloak and rope, and singing her songs of sleep and enchantment. Strong sorcery was tiring to the caster, and she was spent. As she sipped the hot, fortified tea, she began to feel very, very sleepy. The weight of days fell upon her. Luthien felt her eyelids become heavy, as though they were made of stone. Putting down her cup, she leaned back and then her eyes closed. Within moments, Luthien was lost in a deep, dreamless sleep.  
Returning to find the lovely elven princess asleep, Celegorm and Curufin began to cast their own spells, and Luthien was not awake to resist. By using all of their power together, Celegorm and Curufin were able to bind her within their own walls.  
When Luthien awoke, she tried to exit the way she had entered, and found that the doors were closed and shut fast with wizard’s locks and cold iron latches. “Celegorm and Curufin!” she called. “Come forth this instant and give me an accounting of yourselves! How dare you attempt to keep me here?” she demanded, thinking at first that they were working at Thingol’s bidding.  
“Lady, it is with deepest regrets that we do this, but for your own life and safety, we must restrain you in your madness.”  
“What!” she exclaimed through the door, and so it was that Luthien was betrayed; for they held her fast, and took away her cloak, and she was not permitted to pass the gates or to speak with any save the brothers, Celegorm and Curufin. For now, believing that Beren and Felagund were prisoners beyond hope of aid, the brothers purposed to let the King perish, and to keep Luthien and force Thingol to give her hand to Celegorm. Thus they would advance their power, and become the mightiest of the princes of the Noldor. And they did not purpose to seek the Silmarils by craft or war, or to suffer any others to do so, until they had all the might of the Elf-kingdoms under their hands. Orodreth had no power to withstand them, for they swayed the hearts of the people of Nargothrond; and Celegorm sent messengers to Thingol urging his suit.   
When Thingol received the message, he was beside himself with rage, and the messenger shook in his boots and feared for his life. Thingol had made his own list of potential son-in-laws, and the sons of Feanor had been nowhere upon it, and was doubly infuriated to hear of Luthien both having escaped his clever treehouse trap only to be held by the crafty, shady and shadowy sons of Feanor. He sent word back that they should release Luthien at once to his agents, or he would come and take Luthien back by force.

When Sauron’s spies delivered the message that the daughter of Melian was held by Feanor’s sons in Nargothrond, and that Thingol threatened them with war, Sauron laughed out loud with enjoyment and glee. This was the best thing that could have happened. He held Beren and Felagund as his slaves in his dungeon, whilst the Elves made war upon one another. He would wait, enjoying watching his enemies do his work for him and destroy one another. Nor, however, did he tell Morgoth what was happening, for he purposed to keep it to himself until his plans had all played themselves out, and the story should have been made all the better from the waiting. Also there was the fear; his fear of the ancient evil being he served, and once notified, Morgoth would issue commands, orders his servant did not feel he needed. Sauron gloated in private glee, and the labors of his slaves were then made all the more valuable by the knowledge.

But Huan the hound was true of heart, and the love of Luthien had fallen upon him in the first hour of their meeting; and he grieved at her captivity. Therefore he came often to her chamber door; and at night lay before it, for he felt that evil had come to Nargothrond. Luthien spoke often to Huan in her loneliness, telling of Beren, who was the friend of all birds and beasts that did not serve Morgoth; and Huan understood all that was said, for he comprehended the speech of all things with voice, and was both wise and observant. He could also feel and smell things that were unknown to people who walked about on two legs, lofty as they felt they were. The vibrations in the earth, the changes in the air, and the scents of pain, pleasure and fear. He smelled the changes in his masters before ever they spoke with words to argue with King Felagund; or indeed, before they had ever left Valinor. Evil had its own smell, perhaps unnoticed to those who walked about on two legs, since the scent of ill will often sank to the ground. Perhaps the height of their heads from their feet made them think they were loftier than they actually were. Or perhaps it might be that they gloried in the coincidence that they looked as they thought the Valar did. For Valar and Maiar were truly spirits who had no form, and for their own purposes looked as they did. He wondered if they ever suspected that the spirits could be other forms than theirs. For they also appeared as the animals, and walked talked among them. Huan wondered, as he himself was such a spirit, and despite long association, neither of his masters or their contemporaries ever seemed to notice.  
Well he knew of the Silmarils, and the destruction that was always caused in their wake. A hound, he felt no affinity or desire for the Silmarils, or any things, and could perceive the moment that a man, elf or Maia fell in love with them, and it was a greedy, covetous obsession that would tolerate no concessions. Sadly, he knew it was now Curufin and Celegorm, his masters, who were lusting after the Silmarils, and willing to commit any evil and treachery to claim them. Huan put his chin on his paws, and thought to himself, all this lying, betraying and cruelty, and the Silmarils were as yet still upon the loathsome head of Morgoth the Destroyer.  
Now Huan devised a plan for the aid of Luthien; and coming at a time of night he brought her cloak, and then he led her out of Nargothrond, and they fled north together; and he humbled his pride and suffered her to ride upon him in the fashion of a steed, even as the orcs did at times upon great wolves, the Wargs.

When the day’s grisly work was done, the slaves would be lowered back into their pits. In the evenings, Felagund entertained them with memories and stories, trying to engage their minds in thoughts deep enough to distract them from their misery. So then it was, to keep their minds off of the music and the narcotic essence of the purple smoke that drifted everywhere like a living fog, Felagund would cast a small spell of his own, and tell them stories, to keep their minds together and to help them resist the urge to acquiesce and join the shadow elves. At first they had thought these elves were the People of the Spider, as they called themselves, but the Companions had taken to using the evil men’s words for them; shadow elves.   
This night’s story was a tale he had woven from Beren’s many faint recollections of his young childhood in Numenor, and the experiences Felagund himself had whilst fighting alongside the aquatic elves years ago. It was a fortunate thing, really, that the Aquatic Elvenking had run out of metal long ago and enchanted bits of twisted seaweed for their use, for Sauron and his minions had all overlooked the weedy reeds they wore.  
“Long ago, when Morgoth was still known as Melkor, and we knew him as a god of the sea and metals, he turned away from the path of light, and lurked in the deep ocean more than he came among us. In the depths, in secret places none knew, he spawned the amphibious fish-men. They walked upon two legs, but possessed gills and scales, and other features even less attractive. At night they would come ashore, and people would be found missing from their beds. We were terrified, as we did not yet know what it was that stalked us, and Melkor told us that sometimes when an elf’s heart is broken, he or she might cast themselves upon the sea and become as foam upon the water. We marveled at this, as we had not imagined that any among us could feel so lost and alone among friends and family. So we spoke of it to one another, and none reported feelings of despair and despondency, yet the abductions continued. Finally, one was seen, attempting to carry a young boy off to the sea. Our people rushed up and slew the creature, and we wondered mightily what it was, and why it had hunted us. We thought that the horror was over, but alas, it was not so! The disappearances still occurred, and we knew then that there were more of the creatures, yet we were unable to follow them into the depths. Then it was that we sent messengers to our kin, the Aquatic Elves, who were very glad of our notice, for they too had been experiencing these disappearances, and they realized now that the War of the Sea had begun. At that time, both Sauron and Melkor walked among us, sowing lies and deceit, and Feanor was coveting the Silmarils.   
There were other creatures, too, so strange I still do not know what they were. They were like spouts of water that were formed into transparent, living things. They wore moving water like skirts, and the water within them was constantly in motion, as if it were blood. They only came ashore in the pouring rain, and were both glittery as jewels and clear as glass. Their voices were anywhere from ringing bells to intolerable screeching, and to look into their eyes was to be drawn away from the world, and almost all who did so went mad.  
I consulted long with the king of the sea elves, and we discovered the way things truly were. We would not let this army of deep things grow strong by feeding off of our people. We learned that there were others, primitive tribesmen who had made bargains with the things, and offered up their young people at certain times of the year in exchange for abundant fishing and treasures from the deep. Seeing what might await us, we roused an army, both above the sea and below. We were obliged to search the oceans for them, and they were nested like snakes, in cold, salt water pits. So that we of the surface, both elves and men, might help our aquatic kin, their king made for us magic rings.” Then, thinking that he might be overheard, he stopped, and skipped to the next part. “Long was the war, and difficult to win. We did not succeed in destroying the evil fish-men utterly, as had been our goal, but rather we drove them back, and ever vigilant, we kill any we see enter the shallows. Some of the merfolk aided us, but others did not, or acted as spies for Melkor and his minions. I did not then understand how the creatures, half man and half fish, had ever come to be. After having seen Sauron’s workshop, I do think that now I guess the truth, and that Sauron must have learned his gruesome arts from his master.”  
“Something must be done,” Beren said.  
“I agree with you, friend, but yet I find we are in a very poor position to do anything about it.”  
Beren sighed, realizing what Felagund had said was true.   
Then they heard voices at the top of the pit. The shadow elves and evil men enjoyed throwing trash down onto the prisoners. First they ate their meat noisily and with great delight, then they threw down the bones and any other parts they did not want. This they did for several reasons. One was for pure torment of the prisoners, the other was because they did not wish to feed the orcs, and anything they had left they would throw away before they would encourage orcs to roam freely through their area. The pelting of bones and bits stopped, and they heard a familiar voice. It was Semaj, calling down, encouraging them to defect and to tell Sauron all. “You need not suffer so,” he added. “The accommodations of the elves are almost pleasant. Smoky and rustic, to be certain, but safe and comfortable, up off the sickening ground where the air is better. It is nothing like the pits or the filthy huts of the orcs. We have wine, women and song, why do you torment yourselves?”  
“You abandoned us to join with our enemies!” Edrahil exclaimed. “You traitor!”  
“That depends upon whom he was aligned with,” Seldan said grimly. “If he planned on doing Celegorm and Curufin’s bidding, then he has been an excellent servant.”  
“But that does no one any good!” Ledrel exclaimed, the upset showing in his fair, elvish face. “Even had they wished to rid themselves of us, they have sent doom upon themselves as well!”  
“They cared nothing for the fate of their servant,” Seldan said. “It was all chance.”  
“Why do you insist upon remaining down there?” Semaj called down. “You need not swear allegiance to Sauron, if it displeases you, but join rather the People of the Spider, and worship Arachnae with us!”  
“Yes! That is what you should do!” another voice called, Vrame. “I will take you to her, and as you are all most fair to look upon, she would be thrilled with the blessing of such lovely males!”  
“What does that involve?” Hunter asked suddenly.  
“You would be brought before Her, in her Web of Silver, and each of you would have the chance to speak with Her alone, and to swear your allegiance,” Vrame answered. “She holds Fate in her hands, and is the weaver of lives. She can tell you your fortune, and alter it to suit her purposes and your liking.”   
“I mislike this,” Seldan said.  
“She is a most lovely woman, and none of Her people come to harm, surrounded as we are by orcs, ogres and trolls. We have the mark of Arachnae upon us, the mark of the spider. They are afraid of Her, and let us alone. Do you like having orcs throw dirt and worse upon you?”  
“Your friends delight in throwing bones and gristle down upon us,” Felagund pointed out.   
“You are welcome to the marrow in the bones,” Semaj laughed. “It is all that we can spare, and more wholesome than orc slop.”  
“Then perhaps your goddess doesn’t provide for you as well as you think,” Beren suddenly said. “Why is she here, anyway?”  
“For love and for gold, as are we,” Vrame said, and the other elves and demonesses chimed in with her, and then laughed. “For love of Arachnae, and sometimes, for one another. We ladies are looking for mates, and we see ten handsome males crouching in a filthy pit when they could be dancing and singing up here with us. Besides, we do not eat the bones and meat, it is only the blood that we live upon, as spiders do.”  
A shiver went up among the Companions, and they wondered at this strange diet. “We cannot accept your offer,” Felagund told her. “Although if you were to free us, and lead us to the edge of this land, we would be most grateful.”  
“Then we would quickly find ourselves in your stead,” one of the other shadow elves stated.   
“That we can not do,” Vrame answered, “But we would be most honored for you to join us.”  
“Then dear lady,” Felagund spoke, “We must regretfully decline.”  
“Perhaps tomorrow night,” she sang cheerfully, as the songs and chanting began. Drums were played, and the strange sweet smell that affected the mind was drifting along the lavender clouds. Fortunately for the Companions, the orcs were frightened of the sight and smell of the sparkling cloud, and fled from the psychedelic fog that made them feel so strange. Far from transcendental and party-like, the fog made the orcs feel unbalanced, and more likely to attack and kill one another, or to feel doubtful, and lowly, loathing themselves and their own existence. Sometimes, if their women smelt it, they would dance off insanely, to their own deaths.  
The pinkish purple cloud flowed down into the pit, the colors within it cascading around them. “Their goddess is acting in concert with them,” Felagund exclaimed. “Her servants have planted seeds of doubt, and now she will attempt her seduction. Resist, my fellows, resist!” Doubt did begin to enter their hearts, that perhaps they might swear the oaths falsely, and while among the spider elves, to arrange for their own escape. “No!” Felagund told them. “That is a trick! The blood is absolute! Their goddess makes blood slaves of her worshippers, and there is power in that blood, just as there is in the blood of Sauron which animates these zombies and chimerical monsters!”  
Knowing he spoke the truth, they resisted the urge to sing and dance that the fog always brought. “There must be reason if their goddess is that concerned with us,” Beren thought aloud. “Either she is afraid of us, or knows something.”  
“Like what is going to happen!” Ledrel exclaimed. “The Fates are the spinners of lives, of course she knows what will happen! She planned it all ahead of time!”  
“The Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone, all parts of the Great Spider Goddess who spins the lives of elves and men,” Felagund thought aloud. “But why? Arachnae must be the Maiden, who has abandoned her post. We can see this by what is happening. Morgoth and Sauron do not affect our hearts, they can only destroy the background of our lives. It is the Fates themselves who weave our lives full of joy or despair.”  
“One of the Norns had forsaken the light and chosen the path of darkness?” Hunter exclaimed, his heart filling with despair.   
“For one of the Fates to have abandoned us to such vagaries and torments…” Ledrel began.  
“We must hope that it is not permanent,” Felagund decided, interrupting their sad, downward spiral, which would become depressed misery if not forestalled. “If the situation were so dire, would not the Mother and the Crone force her to return?”  
“How much suffering must those of us who live far down here endure?” Edrahil exclaimed.   
“It is not within my power to know the will of the Maiar spirits,” Felagund answered, “If anyone might have a clue, it might be Beren, who has loved the youngest goddess, Luthien, and is friends with her mother, Melian,”  
Beren was suddenly surprised and flattered, to be referred to as such, but he had no deep insights. “The will of the Valar is far above my limited sight,” he immediately confessed. “The discussions I had with Luthien’s mother were about us, not the rest of Middle Earth. There were questions I did not know to ask.”  
“Of course,” Felagund sympathized. “Who would?” 

 

Beren spent some time with them in the Otherworld, mostly calling there for Luthien, but he was unable to find her, as both the tree house prison of Thingol, and the iron room of the brothers trapped her spirit within, and she was unable to exert her arts past it. Doubt and loneliness sometimes tried to creep into his heart. Where had she gone? Did she not want to speak to him? Had Thingol forced her to marry another? These and many more questions burned through his head and heart.

Sauron’s spies were many, and the spider demonesses were among his most agile and effective spies. In the form of tiny spiders, they heard all, in the form of women, they corrupted. Yet he knew who they really served. They worked for him only as long as he paid them in gold and jewels. For their loyalty was unswervingly placed with their goddess. He did not fail to notice, however, that they were always at odds with one another, vying for her favor, and betrayed each other constantly. This was information he kept to himself, however, and using the information they gave him, he devised exquisite torments for the prisoners. No mere tortures, he wanted to destroy their hearts. Doing so, he thought, they might become a better sort of zombie.   
Perceiving the love that Edrahil and Ledrel had for one another, the dark lord Sauron decided to play with them for his own amusement. He ordered a werewolf to maul Ledrel, and not kill him, but to let him live, and setting him partially free, that he might crawl over to Edrahil and bleed. Sauron laughed at this plan, knowing the dying would take many days, and before Ledrel would draw his last breath, the werewolf slew Edrahil, that each might know the other’s suffering and final death. For from such torments the evil spirit of Sauron took both joy and energy.  
The Companions were horrified and disheartened by the cruel carnage and slaughter they were forced to witness, and the days of suffering. Yet even while Ledrel lay dying in the pit, the others were drawn up and forced to work. If they did not, another werewolf would be released, and another would meet the same fate as their unfortunate friends.  
Forced to mind the zombies, Felagund and Beren piled corpses, swept aside messes, and restrained insane animate bodies that were wholly unlike the other zombies, but rather were supernatural in strength and vigor, but possessing no mind. Occasionally Sauron created a zombie with unbelievable power. It would tear off any ordinary rope binding it, and stand up to shuffle away, leaving a path of unmitigated destruction behind it. They killed anything they found, gnawing on flesh, dead or alive, with their glazed over eyes staring blankly any random direction. They could not speak or even think, although they could utter strange moans and growls.  
“I must say,” Felagund said to Beren as they cuffed an incredibly strong, wild acting zombie to a post, “For sheer force these things are unstoppable. They never tire, they never sleep, and they are stronger than any living being. It is probably a good thing that they cannot think or accept direction, they would make an invincible army.”  
“That is what he’s trying to do,” Beren pointed out; tightening a rope around the still flailing zombie. It was everything they could do together, to restrain the creature. Vacant eyes staring at nothing, it would stagger around and destroy anything in its path, especially other zombies, since they were all slow. Even the orcs knew to run away from a loose berserker zombie.  
Still, Sauron’s work had not been progressing as he had hoped. He was still unable to perfectly reanimate corpses, and his dream of an unkillable, invincible zombie army was still out of reach. Death fascinated him, and most of all, the moment at which the spirit left the body. He had almost perfected the way to trap the spirit. He could trap a spirit in a decaying body, he could hold it forever in a warmed bottle, he could even force a spirit into a different body, but to reanimate a dead thing, with its own soul, and have it be the perfect, strong zombie warrior he wanted, he had not yet found the way. Perhaps, he then wondered, if the corpse had an alternate source of energy, he thought, maybe heating the body up first, or using different souls on different bodies, instead of the original ones, or even stealing some of Arachnae’s blood, if necessary. He pondered that last question, and decided only to ask for her blood if there were no other way. The last thing he needed was to create a legion of zombies devoted to her! Then again, he smiled, she would find the zombies repulsive, and he could infuriate her by pointing out that she now had ugly children.  
Many of Sauron’s necromantic experiments resulted in a brief exclamation from the body, then nothing. One particularly disturbing one, at least from Beren and Felagund’s perspective, involved an elf maid, blonde, plump, and pretty, who had been slain by orcs. Seeing the value of such a slave, the dark lord attempted to reanimate her, and the corpse shook violently, emitting a soul rending shriek of horror, as the elf maid opened her eyes. Beren and Felagund stiffened in ghastly amazement, seeing the girl look up, her eyes white and glassy with death. She shrieked again, and then slumped to the floor, lifeless once more.  
Sauron stomped and cursed. He was always so close to achieving his aim, yet failing utterly. This elf maid, her body the freshest yet, had clearly returned to animate motion, yet the look of horror, he wondered why returning to life would be such a cause for despair. One more potential success, so near, yet so far away.   
He decided to try again. Perhaps that spell would work better on a human; they were doughtier. Elf maids in particular were delicate; of body and spirit. It irked him more than a little that Arachnae’s blood magic made vampires, with very little chance of spell failure. When she drank the blood of her elves and men; then gave them some of her own blood, they became vampires every time without fail. Mostly she fed upon her minions, who thought it was a great honor to be so chosen. They would battle and connive amongst themselves for the chance to be her evening repast.   
This gave him an idea; perhaps his own blood would do the trick. He jumped up in excitement, and ordered Beren and Felagund to light a fire around the elf maid’s body, thus warming it up first.  
They worked slowly and clumsily, not wanting any part of this. Sauron shouted at them, threatening to release another werewolf upon the elves remaining in the pit if they went any slower. The fire lit, the area, including the elf maid, began to warm up considerably, making the foul odor even more intolerable with the heat. Sauron found another elf maiden’s soul, trapped in one of his bottles, and readied it beside the body, thinking this time to heat the spirit as well, equalizing the temperatures at which they would unite. He used a much stronger spell this time, combined with his own blood, not that of a weakling human.  
The spell took hold as he unstopped the bottle, binding the soul to the body. Before the spell was complete, the elf maid’s body opened her eyes, and uttering an unearthly wailing, sat up. She looked around momentarily, and with another deathly, soul-curdling shriek, the body contorted up as if in terrible pain, and then fell limp once more. The spirit lingered beside the body, and uttered another piercing shriek that cut through flesh and bone. Sauron leaped forward with the bottle, trying to recapture it, but the spirit became invisible, vanishing. Beren and Felagund were frozen in place from the screaming, while Sauron cursed his luck.  
“Elves,” he sneered. “They claim immortality but they fall like cut flowers,” he said, turning to see Beren and Felagund still standing there in horror, bodies and souls frozen to the spot. “I did not give you permission to stop working!” he shouted at them. “Get back to work,” he ordered the man and the elf. A body, especially an elf body, could not be reused too many times, and since this one was starting to singe from the fire, he would only be wasting a spell. As the dark lord had not ordered them otherwise, Beren and Felagund were content to let the elf-maid’s body burn.  
“He truly wonders why that failed,” Felagund quietly confided to Beren, “But the truth is obvious. The poor girl awoke to perceiving herself being burned by the Dark Lord. Of course she screamed and died immediately!” Beren nodded, but did not respond, lest his voice attract Sauron’s attention.  
After a horrid day, Vrame returned and led both man and elf back to the pit in which they spent their nights. There were great gray clouds in the sky, and rumblings that hinted as to storms to come. Finally, the clouds broke, and cold, clean water fell all around them. As a torrent it was. Relieved, the companions drank the drops that fell upon them from the sky, and were overjoyed as the rain washed the horrid stench and the flies away. Fresh air was a sweet joy indeed to the captives in the pits, as they breathed it in. The companions thrilled at the simple joy of a spring or summer rainfall, and the slaves in the adjacent pits cried to the heavens. Gutteral men above the pits gathered the rain in buckets, while the Elves captured it in barrels, earthen clay pots, and woven cisterns. They coveted all that they could gather, and then they, along with the demonesses, retreated to the web havens on the sides of the cliffs.   
The rain brought much needed relief. However, it also caused a deluge, which then caused the filthy ground to liquefy into a horrid, putrid mud and muck. The Shadow Elves were above it in their nests, as was Sauron in his high tower.   
Underneath the long forgotten ways below the tower; through gigantic walls and pillars of stone; now crumbling and damp, rooms and caverns were filling with filthy water. Silent stone steps lead down into the darkness of abysmal treasure vaults and inconceivable catacombs. Down, down, down into the depths of the earth the water flowed. To where it went none but Felagund had a clue. This tower he had built himself, with his faithful men, long ago. Before evil had even been conceived of in this thenceforth virgin land, this watchtower they had built, so that they might see farther, and even across the sea. Though they could not quite view the lands across the sea, mortal or divine, they had built a mighty tower, and beneath it were vast storerooms and escape routes, as Felagund, who had built this place, had envisioned as being someday perhaps necessary. The Tower was strong and tall enough to see anything that might approach. He certainly did not wish that upon anyone, but should it be necessary, the land would be prepared. Upon those long forgotten halls his thoughts did dwell as the rain fell. Sheets and torrents came down, and he knew whence it went.  
Some of the water, however, was absorbed into the visible ground, and caused the bottoms of the pits to be filled with scummy water, and a great, septic pond was formed. Many prisoners drowned in the foul water, but all of the companions could swim, and the magical rings of the aquatic elf king helped them to survive, vile though their surroundings were.   
Despite the deluge, Vrame appeared and said that Beren and Felagund were to continue working for the Dark Lord. Rain or no rain, Sauron kept at his gruesome experiments. To their dismay, rain meant washing the dreadful lizard beasts, and feeding the older ones bits of meat. Only the babies were kept in Sauron’s workshop, the older ones were kept in sludgy ponds behind the orc hovels. Felagund suspected that they ate orcs on a fairly regular basis.   
“Such a shame,” Felagund said sadly, “That so noble a thing as the dragons have been corrupted, and taught to eat flesh.”  
“I thought that’s what dragons did,” Beren asked, flinging an orc leg out into the pond, and watching the reptiles fight over it.  
“The first dragons were creatures of the air,” Felagund said, “Beings of mostly spirit who were sent to earth with divine messages and were the heralds of incredible good fortune and luck. To see one was to have all of life transformed into wealth and wonder, as good luck and wisdom came in equal measure.”  
“Then what happened?” Beren asked.  
“Morgoth saw their power, and stole some of them, making them maintain bodies of flesh. These dragons ate stone to become mortal, and were sundered from the realm of the spirit. Most of them fled their new master, and flew over the sea to the frozen North. Seldom are they seen, and few in number, although I have heard rumors that sometimes they make nests here in Middle Earth, and when the babies can fly, they return to the frozen lands. Perhaps the babies like a little warmth.”  
“But those creatures we see here?” Beren asked.  
“The ones that did not escape were fed meat, and were taught to covet stone, gold and treasure, but no longer consumed it, as they were already creatures of flesh, and the rocks became only stones in their bellies. Worse, sometimes the eating of minerals, especially sulfur, would result in the dragons being able to breathe a terrible smelling fire, and to belch smoke for miles. Debased indeed are the dragons from their great ancestors, the luck dragons.”  
“I learn many things from talking to you,” Beren observed.  
“You are my best friend,” Felagund said, putting his hand on Beren’s shoulder, “And there is no one I would rather talk to.”   
What they were also soon to learn was that the thunder, lightning, and torrential rain heralded messages from Morgoth. These messages were carried not by orcs but by a far more sinister and dangerous looking thing, which came up from the watery depths of the Tower. Orc, man and elf stood as far away from the purple fleshed, putrescent thing as possible. It smelled of noxious sewage pond water, the scent heralding its approach well before the hideous sight. Though it walked upright, there was no visible means for it to be doing so. It had arms for holding things, in a manlike fashion, yet had six wavering tentacles extruding from what should be a mouth. The eyes were a singular horror, liquescent white and bulging; moving as though something writhed within. Orcs and men fled at its approach; even the shadow elves sensed it and dreaded its appearance, only standing beside the Dark Lord if they were ordered to. Most of them had fled into their hanging web-homes, which were safe above the rising water. The creature was obviously aquatic, and required moisture to live, thus it stayed in the rain, and when the creature left, the rainstorm went with it. Man and Elf hid behind a cart when they saw the thing approach, and then pass them by.  
“Felagund, what was the tentacle creature?” Beren asked, as the rain stopped and they resumed their duties, loading drowned corpses into a large flat wagon.  
“A greater evil than any other but Sauron himself,” Felagund said. “For they are the emissaries of the Old Ones, the creatures that swam the oceans before elves or men awoke. Long before anything that breathes air, they ruled the land and sea. They are the first children of Melkor.”  
“They terrify me,” Beren told him. “Orcs, trolls, even the dragons, do not fill me with a nameless dread, but those dead fish-like creatures with the wavering arms, I feel only horror and disgust when I look upon them. The messengers sent by Sauron to Morgoth were werewolves or bat-like; winged beings of tooth and claw that dripped blood. When Morgoth sent word to Sauron, the deluge began, and then one of these creatures appeared.”  
“As do I, and it is because they have no thought for living things. Their minds are cold, evil; they hate everything that breathes; everything with an interior skeleton. Never look upon them if you can help it, and never look into their dead, fleshy eyes.”  
“What would I see there if I did?” Beren wondered aloud.  
“Death and hatred of all that lives,” Felagund explained. “They are cold spawn, not warm-blooded as we are.” He shuddered as he spoke, and Beren felt a cold prickle upon his neck, as though invisible insects were walking upon him. “They are as dead things, who feel nothing, and destroy anything they can and feed upon it, destroying living creatures utterly. We fought those years ago with the Aquatic elves; the tentacled creatures cannot long leave the sea, even in these rainstorms, and live in the bottoms where the darkness is deepest. The elves are confined to the shallows and the islands for fear of them, the hideous fish-men, and other creatures.”

As they had before, the evenings once again started with the sparkling, lavender, hypnotic smoke that altered the mind accompanied by the drums and music. Escaped slaves occasionally came crawling back for the drugged smoke. It wafted in to them, bringing pleasant sensations and dreams,   
The music became louder, and they could hear the melodious voices of Elves joined together in song, and the strange purple sparkling smoke was drifting down to them. The singing came from the elves’ encampment, and drifted according to the wind; bringing a sickly sweet smell that altered the mind. Orcs detested the elf magic, and would avoid anything Elvish if they possibly could. They complained to the dark lord about it, and he did not care one way or the other, killing several complaining orc chieftains to rid himself of their discontent.   
Softly at first, the music penetrated the atmosphere, moving the elves with the urge to sing and to dance; as it was in their nature to do. The voices were lovely; elves and lyrical demonesses harmonizing with the loud, deeper sounds of Men. Those Men who had accepted the offers of the demonesses lived in the elf-village, and partook of their nightly rituals with them. The voices were wonderful, but the words they sang! Vampiric singing about blood, fate, and immortality, all in devotion to their goddess. Nonetheless, powerful drumbeats forced every elven foot to tap along with the tune. From there the muscles began to twitch, every nerve and fiber longing to join the elves’ dance. The voices of humans were overheard joining the party, shouting and clapping.   
The demonesses visited any pit containing men or elves, calling down to them. Only they had the keys to unlock the chains that bound the prisoners. “Handsome males!” they would call down into the pit Beren and Felagund, along with their companions, were held in. “Such a waste to lie there at the bottom of a pit in fetters, when there is a party up here! Join us! All the ladies are up here waiting for you!”  
Felagund would always answer for them immediately, lest one of his companions weaken and acquiesce. “No, thank you for the invitation, but we will not join in the worship of your spider goddess.” They heard laughter up above.  
“Why are you fellows still down there?” Semaj called down with a laugh. “The elf encampment is rough-hewn but livable enough, with real, proper beds and congenial company.”  
“I told you,” Felagund answered, and not without anger, “We will not become elves of the shadows in service to Arachnae!”  
“Why not? Unless you care so little for your lives as to throw yourselves away as werewolf food. Besides, the women here are fantastic!”  
“We did not come here to date demonesses, Semaj!” Felagund shamed him. “We came here to defeat evil, not to join forces with it!”  
“It is not too late to join forces with the winning side,” Semaj called back down. “What exactly do you have to lose?”  
“My soul and self respect!” Beren shouted back up to him. “As well as the reputation of my father, the love of my lady, and the grace of the Valar!”  
Light elf turning into a shadow elf was a slow, excruciating combination of pleasure and pain. Resistance was painful, cooperation resulted in conversion to darkness. It was something Arachnae and her demonesses well knew. Arachnae also knew that Elves desired pleasure and knowledge, where Men preferred power. She chose her emissaries with care, but soon discovered that she had misjudged Beren. She sent one of her demonesses to tempt him, and was surprised that a human continued to resist. Almost all of them were swayed by gold, power, or sex.  
“Choose life,” the appointed demoness purred, letting herself down into the pit on a silken strand. “Do you not long for the generative force, that which tempts us all? I would allow you to be my mate, we would be together in every way. You would experience a life that you have not yet imagined, a state of ecstasy so powerful you cannot yet envision it. There is power and wealth out there of vast potential, and now is the time to claim it! Come with me, son of Barahir, there is greatness to be had, and you will be beside me. If you stand there chained to a wall, then you are a fool.”  
Beren jumped, wanting to avoid the demoness’ touch. “No, no I’ll have to pass on that…”  
“I would not,” Hunter said, breathing deeply of the sparkling smoke. Fair elvish voices floated with it, singing hypnotically. “Enough of this foul pit, and the constant deaths of our companions! Sauron means to work us to death or slay us in front of one another! Perhaps this creature is right, we may be of more use alive than dead?”  
“Of service to whom?” Felagund asked him. “I would deny Sauron and his evil consort Arachnae the benefit of my service, to such extents as I may yet have the power to decide.”  
“Have you chosen freedom?” the beautiful demoness asked, silver key in hand. “Simply say yes and I shall release you from your bonds, and you may join us.”  
“He will have none of it!” Felagund ordered them, “If only for your family honor, if nothing else.” He looked over at Hunter and said firmly, “Be it not said that a wood elf gave in to the temptations of darkness when the Noldor and the House of Beor stood tall.”  
Felagund’s words went straight to his heart and mind, and Hunter once more regained control of his senses. “I am over it. A madness took me, but it has passed. The music, it corrupts the heartbeat, and pierces the bone!”  
“I know, I can taste it,” Felagund agreed, “It is the calling temptations of an errant goddess falling into the ways of evil, and inviting all others within range of her voice to join her. Can you not detect under the sweetness the taste and smell of rot?”  
“Indeed, it is beauty corrupted into evil,” Beren noted. “No, lady, we will all stand fast with one another, and although we thank you for your offer, we still cannot accept it.”  
Seeing that her time would be better spent elsewhere, the demoness ascended her silver thread, and then went to tell Arachnae what she had learned of the fortitude of the men in the pits. The goddess thought long about them and told the demoness to spy upon them unseen. Returning in the form of a small spider, she sat, and listened. They were discussing the sacred, scented smoke.  
“It is like women, wine and song in one rushing wave,” Seldan said.  
“I like it better than the werewolf,” Beren said.  
“I can almost understand these shadow elves, and their spider goddess,” Felagund told them. “Being selfish and evil, pursuing one’s own pleasures to the detriment of others. It is like a child’s mentality gone terribly wrong, or they are all insane from the drugs and debauchery. But the mindset of Sauron or of the orcs? All understanding of them continues to elude me. Why does he wish to make an infernal mess? Why is a world of debased, foul smelling creatures preferable to a world of independent people? That is the part I simply cannot comprehend. I was a king, taking care of realms of people was my employ, and never once did I think making a mess was acceptable! What I see before me is a tragedy. Why did we let it get to this point?”  
Beren shook his head. “I never thought it would come to this.”  
“Why not?” Hunter asked. “Evil grows stronger by the hour. You have known that since the ruin of Dorthonion, as have my people, as our woods and glens are burned and destroyed by the foul feet or orcs, and my people slain or taken captive.”  
“Because I thought all would join with me, upon hearing my tale,” Beren said, realizing suddenly his own innocence. “I had thought that all might take up arms and make a great siege upon Angband and the Tower of Gulgoroth, knowing that what happens to one land of Elves or Men may well happen to the next, indeed, must, and that only by defeating evil before it has had a chance to grow is our only hope.”  
“No,” Felagund said sadly, and with great patience. “No, no one else thought that. Although I agree with you completely, I feel as though long had I been complicit in the problem. As king, I had many years in which to have made allies and joined siege as you have so clearly said. Yet, I did not. I loved my comforts of hearth and home, much like some reticent dwarf or hiding hobbit. I could have taken seriously the seemingly insane rants of the Elves who claimed to have escaped from the lands of evil, but they all seemed so impossibly disjointed, and then they would creep back to the borders of Tol Gulgoroth, for what purpose I could not imagine. Now I do know for what it was they returned. It was for the addicting, mind-altering magic smoke that the goddess of the demonesses and shadow elves creates every evening. I did not know at the time what it was that made them so insane, but I do now, and I feel that I was remiss, as their king, to not find out for myself what it was that enslaved the minds of our people so much that they would willingly return to Sauron’s lands around Angband. We simply assumed they had become spies of the enemy,” Felagund said sadly. “Now that I have knowledge, I also have too much time to repent of my misdecision. I was their king, and I feel as though I have failed them.”  
“The people of Nargothrond were not moved by anything you or I said,” Beren comforted him. “Had you spoken such earlier, they would have doubted you all the more.”  
“Perhaps,” Felagund said. “But a king is expected to know such things. If I did not, or could not, then I had no business being the king, and should have found someone else for the job.”  
“Good luck with that,” Seldan said cryptically. “Before the hearts of Celegorm and Curufin became inflamed with lust for the Silmarils no one would have shown up for that duty call.”  
“Whatever do you mean?” Beren asked. This must be a strange elf-problem, he thought. Since he was involved with Luthien, he felt that he should inquire and learn all that there was to know about strange elf-customs that were alien to Men.  
“The duties of a king are the same for elves as for men,” Felagund said. “Protecting the realm, and discerning the important from the fantasy, or from the momentary threats that such as a mindless rabble of orcs might pose. I should have known that Sauron was not acting alone, and that there was some other agent besides the grotesqueness of Morgoth at work. In Arachnae and her demonesses and shadow elves have I found my answer! Now do I rue the quick judgments of addle-brainedness we labeled most of the escapees with! For hindsight is the clearest! They told the truth, some of them at any rate. Others, I see now, were possibly traitors doing the will of Arachnae, which was to discredit the earnest and innocent. So has fate been sown.”  
“There was no way you could have known of the defection of one of the Norns,” Seldan stated. “None of us did, but if we had, we would have understood why things changed as they did.”  
“You speak truly, my friend,” Felagund agreed. “Yet, it does not absolve my soul of responsibility.”  
“Did you choose to be king?” Beren asked suddenly.  
“Yes, I did. It could happen to anybody,” Felagund confessed. “Among the Elves, slipping away from meetings where heavy duties are assigned is common. I showed up and led so many meetings they just made me king, as then there was no longer such a need for so many meetings.”  
Beren shook his head. “In the world of Men, there is a constant vying for control, everyone wants to be rich, and the rich want to be powerful, and they all want to be king. In some realms, wars are fought so that one man may become king over many.”  
“Not among the Elves. There are much more pleasant things to do than sit around and legislate. Being the king is an onerous job among a people that love creativity and art, so it is not a sought-after position. My people love painting and drawing as much as they love singing and dancing. These things they take seriously, and devote much energy and time to. The performers were widely seen, the silent artists presented their creations quietly, but with no less enthusiasm. The people venerated such beauty, and exulted in it, as do all elves. Through it all, I sat and waited. What was I waiting for?” Then he added, giving Beren future advice, “Rule by competence, and lead by example. Take care of your people, and they will take care of you.”  
“How’s that working for you?” Hunter said wryly.  
“The truth is not proved wrong by unpleasant outcome,” Felagund said kindly. “If anything, the opposite is true. I chose not to believe the escaped captives and their bizarre stories. Nor did I take it upon myself to discover the deep truths of the matter. I was content with my home, friends, and fond routines. Now I realize that I was only passing through. Those points in time where we seem to be most content are the very same points at which important forces are brewing of which we know nothing of. Yet, it is so difficult to force oneself from comfort to action!”  
“You harness yourself to a freight of guilt,” Beren said kindly, “Which assumes that you knew then what you do now, which you did not. Perhaps you erred in not pursuing the stories told to you by the former captives, but also did they return to this cursed land to breathe deeply of the drugged smoke of Arachnae! It is all too easy to second guess ourselves, and as such, we are often hesitant when right, and headstrong when wrong.”  
“Perhaps,” Felagund agreed quietly, gazing up at the sky from the pit. The stars were obscured by the foul smokes of Sauron and the mind-altering fog spread nightly by Arachnae. How beautiful the unaltered twilight might have been! The starry sky that would have followed might have lifted and lightened his spirit, and so it was that he realized why the skies were eternally obscured in this foul place. For in the very heavens was written the freedom and wisdom of ages. There was a fine line indeed between hope and hurt. Looking up, he then knew that he would die here, beneath the shadow of the tower he had once built. The stars also shone with the grace of the Valar, and he knew that not all of them would die. Although Felagund himself would be called home to the Halls of Mandos, others of the Companionship would yet go free, and through them the history of Middle Earth would be woven.

Arachnae listened to her ladies, and she considered carefully the tales they related to her about the various prisoners. Sometimes she would go in disguise, walking around to see for herself what all must be on the ground. To this end, she would disguise herself as a beautiful, dark-haired young elven mother with a half-human baby strapped to her chest or back. She treated with the prisoners as she saw fit, if they could do something for her, she would sometimes aid them, but never did she tell Sauron of her excursions. The dwarves she made deals with- she would release them, but they owed her a hundred years’ labor upon her magical city in the making. Most of the captured dwarves reluctantly accepted her offer of bonded servitude, and so she obtained valuable free labor from them, while she told Sauron that they had been torn apart and eaten by orcs. Since he had already taken all their weapons and gold, he cared little what happened to their persons. Dwarven zombies were durable and stout, but little else. They were short, with no wide range of arms, and without the dwarf’s own sturdy soul to force the body forward, they dragged their feet and slumped over after less than a week. Dwarven souls turned to dust upon death, and thus returned to Aule, to rejoin the great earthen and stone collective that was their spiritual nexus.   
Watching silently while Beren and Felagund worked for Sauron, and listening in on their conversations while in the form of an inconspicuous spider, she learned several amazing facts. Finrod Felagund, nephew of Finarfin, and King of Nargothrond, lay nightly in a pit with a handful of his men, and among them were an independent wood elf and a mortal man. The mortal man was Beren, son of Barahir, and descendant of Beor. She smiled, no wonder Sauron kept such a close eye upon these two! Speaking to her ladies, it seemed that only Vrame, the demi-demoness whose job it was to feed and water the slaves had any working relationship with them. So she granted Vrame an audience, and spoke with her.   
“The light elven slaves in the pit, who have a mortal man as one of their own,” she inquired, “What have you learned of them?”  
So honored was Vrame to have a direct meeting with the goddess Arachnae, just the two of them, that she willingly told her all that she knew, and much that she supposed.  
“You have done excellent work,” Arachnae told her, “Both in your daily chores and in the assessments and summary that you have provided to me. When we reach our destination, in that fairyland of subterranean light, you shall be the matron of a great house. Pick any male that you desire for your consort, and I shall see that it is done,” she said. Then she kissed Vrame on the forehead, and there ever after, on her and her descendants, was the shadow image of a spider. “If you please me further, with more information, or by converting the elf king, or the man-king, into one of us, your house shall be all the more great.”  
Vrame was overcome with joy. The daughter of one of the original demonesses created by Arachnae, this was her chance to impress her grandmother, the great and lovely goddess Arachnae, and to become more powerful in the process. She set about her task with renewed zeal. That night, when the fragrant, sparkling lavender cloud began to cover the land, and the singing began, she once again descended the pit where dwelt the slaves from Nargothrond. She brought with her a basket of fruit, which she had obtained at great effort, threading her way through nigh impenetrable thorny brambles, and then finally climbing several bare trees once she had conquered the lay of thorns. So prepared, she descended the pit of the elves.   
She approached the mortal man, “I have here with me some fruit, a treasure in this land. This one I give you as a token of our friendship, the basket I will give to you if you abandon your bindings and come with me to the party tonight, as I would much enjoy your company.”  
“Thank you for the berry, but I still do not want to accompany you to your vampire party. Thank you anyway. Feel free to provide food for my companions, as I know they would appreciate it,” Beren said politely. He knew far better than to offend the only creature that brought them water.  
She then approached the Elf King, and gave him an apple. His response was the same, “Thank you, and I would wish for you to also feed my companions, who I know hunger as well for something fresh, however ordinary it may seem.”   
“We are just not getting through to you,” the demoness Vrame said with a pleasant laugh. “I will pursue this personally.”   
“There is no doubt in my mind that the antics in the pits will continue,” Felagund said with a calm sad certainty.  
“Why do you always come down here to give us food and be nice to us?” Beren interrupted.  
Vrame studied him for a moment, then she handed him an apple. “You boys need to eat,” she answered simply. “You are rather attractive,” she smiled at him. “Have you married yet?”  
“I already have a mate,” Beren told her. “A beautiful Maia goddess, the loveliest of all the children of this world,” he winced after he said it, knowing that he should not have told her this.   
“I am impressed,” the demoness said, “You have great aspirations and good taste.” So that was his magic, she thought. A goddess had taught him, so there was no way of knowing his abilities, or his limits. Anyway, Vrame had been well paid already. If one of these elves or men tripped her fancy, she would leave willingly, for the promised fairyland of Arachnae. But when might that be? What if they were to go far away from the noise, dirt, and war? Somewhere by the sea, she thought pleasantly, perhaps over the sea. Then she caught herself thinking an impious thought, the very idea of abandoning the Goddess was anathema. Husband or no husband, she would follow Arachnae. Of course, any husband should follow along as well, if he were wise.  
Felagund had been thinking as he observed the demoness. “You are neither elf nor human, nor demon or creature of the pits, but something else. What are you, Vrame, and why are you here; serving the most wicked of masters?”  
“I am a demi-demoness, King Felagund. My mother was a succubus, and my father was a human prince. The working conditions are poor, but the pay is excellent. I am saving as much gold as I can for the Calling.”  
“What is that?” the elf king asked, still somewhat mystified. He had overheard some of the elves and demonesses talking about it, but whatever it was, the exact nature of it baffled him.  
“When the goddess Arachnae calls all her followers; it will be time to depart the surface realm and make our own fairyland beneath the earth. There a realm is being built for us, and because I have served Her well, I will have a great house, and Her blessing.”  
“Tell me more about the Calling,” Felagund asked. “Are we going?”  
The demoness looked elated for a minute. “Do you wish to remove with us? Any woman would think herself lucky to be with you.”  
“I require more information,” he said, and the others stared at him in numb surprise, wondering if he meant it.  
Vrame had much to say about the Calling, and the coming of their new home. “It will be great,” she extolled. “There is even now beneath the earth’s surface, beneath the grim mines of the dwarves, a magical fairyland of wondrous beauty, unparalleled upon the earth’s surface, and it is being built by the dwarves as we speak! Great houses and streets of woven beauty; carved walls and gems which light our way, second only to the Silmarils! Like to the caves of Menegroth it will be, when it is complete. That is our future home, and when we leave this cursed place to answer the Calling, it is to this beautiful place that we will go.”  
Beren’s ears perked up upon hearing that. Had Arachnae recreated the Silmarils? Where might they be had? Would Thingol really notice, if he were given a recreation? Who would know, he wondered. Then he stepped back from his own thoughts, and realized how seductive Vrame and her goddess could truly be.  
“I have an idea,” Felagund said to Vrame. “I am the king of Nargothrond, and I will marry you if you help me free my companions, and then lead us to safety.”   
Vrame smiled widely for a moment, and then stopped to consider the offer. “Queenship, and a very handsome husband,” she wondered aloud, her eyes sparkling, “But I would be angering both the dark lord for freeing you, and Arachnae for defecting from her web. I must think carefully upon this offer.” She looked aside and then down, her brows knit in quick thought and sudden comprehension. What she might lose, and what she might gain flashed before her.  
“Think well but not too long,” he reminded her. “Sauron releases a werewolf into the pit every time he becomes angry at us for some reason.”  
“Usually because we’re working too slowly,” Beren noted with disgusted irony.  
“That which it is within my power to control,” she said, “I will ensure remains the same. I will raise you from the pit at the same time tomorrow morning as I do every day.”  
“Hooray,” Seldan said with no enthusiasm at all.  
“Keep your own counsel,” Felagund told him. “Matters are afoot that perchance may change much.”

The sun rose that morning with magnificent colors filtering through the smoky air, and illuminating even the darkest pits. In a pleasant mood, Arachnae permitted Yavanna’s Song of the Morning to be heard through the din of the orc pits for the first time. All Elves and Men who heard it sweet melody swayed with it, be they prisoner, soldier or slave.  
“Why do they always come to tempt or attack me?” Beren asked.  
“You have a magnificent future, and your line will outlast the dimming of the world,” foresaw Felagund. “Your descendants will someday destroy them utterly, and in some vague way, they sense this. They hope that by corrupting you, they will draw you down, and thus ensnare Luthien and Melian as well. I know this will not work, but they do not. The will of the Valar is as water flowing down a hill. Try as they might, they cannot long contain the flow, and it will break free in ways un-looked for, and unforeseen. They have such base, evil, and vulgar plans! That I have lived to see my land become so! It is like a winter that never sees the light of spring, whilst rare and valuable roots and bulbs die underground, awaiting the break in the frost. If only those roots did not have lives and names, with families of their own!”   
Beren knew well enough that he spoke of his people, that he could no longer help, trapped as he was. He had helped Felagund as he might, in the Dreamworld, whilst still searching for Luthien, and trying to rally a resistance, and warn others of what happened in the pits and hidden prisons of Sauron. It seemed that the fight against evil was multifold, taking place on all the planes at once, and there were times when Felagund knew it was more important to spend those hours speaking to a mortal child in the world of dream than to wake and confront Sauron directly. Beren went with him on these errands, and appeared as many different beings. Always, they were helpful and illuminating, leaving the dreamer in a deeper state of consciousness than before, though their visage might vary greatly. To one child, they might be eagles, to another, spirits of mist or air. Always Felagund gave messages of hope and inspiration. Spells of great magic were blocking Beren’s access to Luthien, and they were neither the work of Sauron, nor the will of Thingol. Someone else was operating, but to what end, he did not know. However, their desire to keep him apart from Luthien was all it took to cause his enmity. There was no good reason why it should be, especially in the world of dream.

One evening, deep in the depressing pit they themselves had dug, as the rain that foretold only horror began to fall, Felagund put his head upon Beren’s shoulder and said, “If we should die here, come back with me. I know you also belong to Luthien, but just once more, when we go through the strange, hidden cycle again, come with me to Numenor or Valinor, and there we shall be reborn by the sea.”  
Beren thought carefully, knowing Felagund’s pain, and soothing his friend with his touch upon the silky blond hair with his fingertips. Surely Luthien would find her own way to Valinor, where she would surely go if they did not return from the pits. The elf’s cheek against his shoulder was wet with tears.  
“It is not your fault,” Beren said at last, great comfort in his voice. So soothing and kind was his tone, that the others who might have heard went back to sleep. “None of this was your fault, although I know you carry the deaths of all of your people as a great burden. Be comforted, I will stay with you as long as I may. Luthien will not hold it against me if I help you.”  
“If we are reborn in Valinor or Numenor, then there will be no more death,” Felagund said with a weary sigh.  
“If we die, then indeed I shall go where you go; wheresoever that may be, yet I urge you to recall that my heart is also given to a goddess, and I feel that she yet has an important part to play, ere this is all over.”   
“Doubtless you are correct, but my vision clouds now with sadness and grief. This is the time when I need you to carry me. The quest is now dimmed to me, and the light has faded. All that has come before is failing, and that which comes before me is dim. I doubt that I shall ever exit these gates of which we have entered.”  
“It is too soon to despair,” Beren whispered back in the darkness.   
“But I shall die here,” Felagund said softly, so as not to wake the others. “In my dreams I have foreseen it.”  
“I can but hope that it was a false vision,” Beren said, “Like those of the will-o-the-wisps, or the trickery of the wicked. The spirits we challenge are great, as are the forces who seek to aid us. False visions are not uncommon, I suspect, especially in a horrid pit such as this. Sleep now, my friend, as there are fresh horrors to await us in the morning.”

 

The next morning, as the rain continued to fall, they heard familiar voices at the top of the pit, and Vrame slid down a silken rope as she always did, bringing them water and bread. She looked exceptionally happy, and her usually beautiful face was radiant and resplendent with joy.  
Beren looked up and said, “You look peachy today.”  
“You look very well today,” Felagund said kindly, “Almost radiant, like a garden at the first break of dawn.”  
“I have found a husband!” Vrame told him, clasping her hands together.  
“Congratulations,” the elf responded with true empathic joy, “What is his name?”  
“Semaj.”  
A cry of dismay went up from the prisoners. “I never thought I would be saying this to a demoness about one of my own people,” the elf king said severely, “But you can do much better!”  
Beren said, “He betrayed us after his first masters sent him along with us because he was so worthless!”  
“He has some flaws, but so does everyone,” the demoness explained, “Besides, tomorrow I have a wedding dance with my spider sisters, and so a siren will be here to do my job.”  
“A siren? What’s that?” Beren asked, with an audible note of trepidation and fear in his voice.  
“Are they not singing women who lure men to their deaths?” one of the Companions asked, the worry audible in his voice, “For I have heard tales of sailors throwing themselves overboard because of the enticing songs of the sirens.”  
“Say rather this one will drive you to it,” Vrame answered vaguely as she looked away, up at the sky. That was why Vrio was not invited to the bridal dance, Vrame thought.  
“Do you get a feast to go with your dance?” Beren asked, smiling most charmingly at the demoness, one eyebrow up in meaning, intimating that maybe she could throw some non-moldy bread or nuts their way. The memory of savory roasts, glazed cakes, fine wines, hearty beers, candied fruits, and grilled vegetables with tidbits upon skewers returned to him most unbidden, as he recalled several weddings he had attended long ago, in Dorthinion. Roast birds, eggs boiled and then halved with herbs and spices, served upon decorated platters, with white flowers around the table. His memory tormented him with the savory delights of long ago.  
“No more than usual, although we might have some firewater,” she guessed. “Are you inviting yourselves?” she asked enthusiastically. “You are more than welcome to come! We would be honored, and I would be most overjoyed, as I do so enjoy the company of all of you, but especially King Finrod Felagund and Beren, son of Barahir.”  
“Nothing would please me less than watching that damn Semaj enjoy himself!” another of the Companions fumed. “That worthless bastard! Curufin and Celegorm did this to us on purpose! They knew!”  
“Bite your tongue,” Felagund told them severely, “You are speaking to a lady who loves him.” The king knew better than to anger the only person who ever brought them food and water, tinny tasting though it was. “This lady is his bride, and she loves him.”  
“Love blooms in Angband,” Seldan responded, with obvious sarcasm he could not conceal.  
“It is the only thing that does,” Hunter added, with grim finality.  
“Stop that,” Felagund told him. Then he turned to Vrame. “If you are happy, then I am happy for you. Tell me more about the Calling. Are we going?”  
The demoness looked elated for a moment. “Do you wish to come with us? Any woman would find herself lucky to be with you!”  
“I require more information,” Felagund said, as the others stared at him, wondering if he meant it. “If you are wedded to Semaj, then obviously you have foresworn my offer of Queenship in Nargothrond,” he said slowly, observing her response.   
“Why would you not cleave to me and rejoice in the grace and glory of our goddess?” Vrame asked. “For this recalcitrance will be your undoing. Around you are many elves and demonesses who search high and low for a suitable mate. You are everything they might ever desire. Why do you insist upon lying in this filthy pit and slaving away in the disgusting service of Sauron, when you might join us in the revelry and parties that Arachnae rewards us with? The best of which are yet to come! When we leave this befouled land, we will enter the fairyland of light, which She has prepared for us! Why do you lie here thus?”  
“Because I see the future of your goddess and her people,” Felagund said kindly, “And in no way do I wish to aid and abet that cruelty which is to come. For what it is worth, show mercy to those who are beneath you, and teach that to your daughters and grand-daughters.”  
The demoness seemed somewhat perplexed by this odd request, and she pondered it greatly. “I do not have the gift of foresight,” she said. “But I shall remember your words; not only those of today but of all the days before.” She paused and then said, “It would bring me great joy if you would join us, and thus free yourselves from this pit.”  
“That, my lady,” Felagund said, “I cannot do. Although if you might bring my companions extra food and water, I would be grateful.”  
“I do that anyway,” Vrame said. “For you I favor above all other prisoners, and bring you food and water even when it is not scheduled. Here, there is roast meat and wine among the elves this day, in celebration of not only my wedding but others as well. Arachnae loves us and wants us to be happy; and so has provided a great feast for us; one I would be overjoyed to share with you above the ground if only you would agree to come with us. It saddens me to see all of you wither.” After more unsuccessful attempts to lure the Companions into the service of Arachnae, Vrame left them, climbing up her silver thread and departing.

When Vrame was absent then for a day, the elves presumed she was out cavorting with their own disreputable companion, and although they thought they might have a day off from their disagreeable labors, it was not so. Later than usual, a different demoness came to the pit. She called down repeatedly, and Felagund was obliged to shout his answers back, as if the demoness were deaf. They were already resentful about the fortune of Semaj as compared with their own, and were not even able to pretend to be cheerful when Vrio the demoness descended into the pit, neglecting to give them any food or water. She was much larger than Vrame, and louder as well. She asked repeatedly which of them were to work together, and seemed to forget the answers immediately, as well as where they were assigned. Thus they were thirsty, frustrated and angry before ever they were brought to their work, and Vrio did not trust them, so she brought them up one at a time, instead of by twos, so it all took longer. She bound their hands with silver spider’s thread, although Felagund told her many times that this was not necessary. Then she asked Beren and Felagund separately where they normally went, although they had explained it to her many times before, and even the level-headed Felagund was almost ready to shout by the time they were both brought before the Dark Lord, who was as usual, ready to animate some zombies. Vrio stood beside them, micromanaging every move they made, while Sauron sewed body parts together at the other end of the workshop. Sauron was irritated that his slaves were so late in arriving, and a pile of discarded body parts had accumulated, which were becoming onerous to work around.  
“Lady,” Felagund told her, “We do not require this much direction just to haul piles of arms.” But Vrio would have none of it, and stood right beside them.  
“Vrame leaves us alone,” Beren hinted at her, “As she has many other duties that must be attended to.” She ignored his words, and Beren sighed, yet another suggestion unheeded.  
As they pulled the cart full of arms over to Sauron, Vrio followed, directing them as to which way they should pull the cart, when Beren let go of the rope and told her to please leave them be, after all, they were under the direct supervision of the Dark Lord himself, and that she could leave now. Vrio shook her head, apparently thinking this was some sort of opportunity to impress her superior, who was silently observing them all.  
She turned around to point at the piles of legs, and began deciding out loud how and when they should pull the piles, when Felagund, suddenly overcome with frustration exclaimed, “It is like a form of torture to have to listen to this!”  
“Her powers are more refined than the other demonesses,” Beren agreed. “Instead of just talking you to death, she can irritate you so much your eyes want to shoot out of your head.”  
At this they heard a terrifying burst of sound, which they discovered to be Sauron laughing. The dark lord had quite enjoyed watching them from the other side of the room, and found it so amusing he stopped working for almost a minute to laugh. Vrio turned around at this noise, and asked, “What? What’s so funny?”  
“Nothing is funny,” Sauron said, returning again to his normal demeanor. “Get back over there and continue working,” he said, pointing back the way they had come. As Beren and Felagund pulled the cart back, Vrio ordering them the entire way, they once again heard the bizarre, awful sound that was Sauron’s evil laughter. When Felagund stopped and turned around to speak, the dark lord told him, “Work faster or I will release the werewolf.”  
Felagund and Beren turned and continued pulling the grisly cart, dripping blood and smelling like ghastly, open graves, Vrio talking at them the entire way. Something she said filled their hearts with despair. Wedding dances of the spider-people lasted a week. Felagund dropped the cart handle and turned around, and Beren elbowed him. “A week?” Beren exclaimed. “Seven full days of this?”  
Felagund whispered to him, “A week? I am annoyed out of my mind already!”  
“You were invited to the wedding dance,” the Dark Lord called from across the room, easily able to hear their words. “All you had to do was go to it, you and your companions. How hard could that be?” he smiled. “From the rumors I heard, you even offered to be the groom.”   
Beren and Felagund had, over the time they had spent hauling grisly debris, developed a fine appreciation for the wicked sense of humor possessed by the evil fire spirit, and then Beren suddenly turned and picked up the cart handle again without a word. Felagund recognized instantly why he had done that, and followed him. Sauron would not kill any of their Companions today because they were working too slowly. Vrio had not stopped talking long enough to notice. She followed them as before, not doing any work herself but providing a distraction to cause them to work slower and longer.   
That night they descended again into the pit, more tired and frustrated than ever. It was with relief that they all fell asleep, entering the Dreamworld. In the Dreamworld, oral language was not the medium for the transmission of thought. Yet the Elves, ever the speakers, used it to converse beside gardens, valleys, forests and palaces, and thus it was their true immortality, to dwell forever in this loveliest of all realms, with their friends and families. Nights were their balm, and the Companions, along with many other Elves across Middle Earth, dreaded waking in the morning, and some of the living had begun to envy the dead, who need never wake up in hell again.  
It was here that they held their councils, under a high dome of living fire; they conferred, and before they then left the presence of one another to seek then their families, they spoke together in thought and light; and none were strangers to one another, but had been there since the world began, and would remain there in council for ever more. Before departing, Beren and Felagund would hold counsel together, soul to soul, with silent and perfect interchange of thought. The hour was one of approaching triumph, for they would soon escape at last from a period of degrading bondage; escaping forever, and vowing to follow their cursed oppressor even unto the utmost fields of ether, that upon him might be wrought a flaming cosmic vengeance which would shake the spheres. Then they parted company, Felagund to find his family, Beren to find Luthien, as his mother and father already knew of his betrothal to the Maia goddess, and granted him their leave.   
In their dreams, beyond the wall of sleep, life, matter and vitality as the earth knew such things, were not necessarily constant; and that time and space did not exist as their waking selves comprehended them.  
There they visited, and Luthien knew the horrors of the pits, and Beren knew the helpless rage of Luthien, trapped in the iron rooms which sapped her of her magical powers. Grounded, she could do nothing; her only hope lay in convincing a hound to help her. She had expended all of her power, saved up over weeks, to have burst forth and given him this message, and she faded in his arms. Knowing Celegorm and Curufin were at the root of the problem, he vowed that he would one day take his vengeance upon them, for they held Luthien in bondage, and in doing so, they declared war upon him. 

Deep in thougt, Dark Lord looked up from his stitching, attaching as he was wings to a human’s body, trying now for aerial servants, as he who ruled the air ruled the world, and he was still flush with the success of his winged steeds. With any luck they would breed true.   
Letting herself down upon a silken strand, black and burgundy gown swirling around her in smoky darkness was the spider goddess. He sighed, she would want to talk, and the corpse might rot before she was done. “Yes, Arachnae?” he said. Now what, he thought in sour displeasure. This could last all night, every moment of it a waste of time as she magnified the minutiae of her life.  
She stood there for a moment, resplendent in her web-like raiment, all pale skin, dark eyes and blood red lips, studying him, and then she spoke. “I have enjoyed my time here with you, such as it was, and so have my ladies, but they are restless and wish to journey on. Also, long have you delayed in parting with any gold.” She paused to smile, and then said, “My ladies must be paid current.”   
He dropped the needles and threads, surprised by this. He had thought she only wanted to complain or slow him down. “What! Just perfect!” he muttered under his breath, thinking about the amount of gold he would have to part with to bring all the accounts with those demonesses current, and then said to her, “I need you here, and your women! Who is going to feed and interrogate the prisoners?”  
“You have other servants,” she said sweetly, knowing what worthlessness she was actually referring to, the orcs and half-orc mortal men lying around in their own filth. They were unreliable servants at best, more likely to fight amongst themselves than to accomplish a task. “I will take only my spider-worshippers with me.” She smiled sweetly, knowing that this meant every demoness, almost every elf, and most of the mortal men who were worth anything at all. The only ones left would be the prisoners in the pits who had refused her, and were both balky and unreliable. Without her ladies, those elves, men, and dwarves would surely run away or be eaten by orcs.  
“I need effectiveness and reliability!” he paused to think, realizing that she commanded the loyalty of all of his most valuable servants. Demonesses, Elves, and Men, all had converted to the cult of the Spider Goddess. Some she had favored with her own blood, and made them vampires. Not like his vampires, they did not consort with the werewolves, but rather retained their own forms, only more powerful and beautiful for having tasted the blood of a goddess. Her vampires then stayed with their own people to lead and prey on them. The fashion fops, he thought irately. All those bastards thought about was how their cloaks fell around their ankles, chins and shoulders! Nonetheless, fops though they may be, the absence of Arachnae’s followers would cripple his army and his plans. “Where are you going? I will match the offer.” Yet, he thought, would she really do it, or was she just threatening more gold out of him?  
“We are making our own city, the Dwarves have begun work on it already,” she smiled, meaning that it was now almost complete, which was why she was telling him about it, “My ladies and their mates long for a life of leisure and learning, they want to dwell in a realm of their own, where they may worship and pleasure themselves as they please.” She noticed his stern, unimpressed look and continued on, “All have become weary of the grueling, rough living conditions here, and while we have attempted to adjust, what with the string and cable houses,” she said, describing the dwellings of her people, made of spider’s webbing. The very finest fibers were barely visible; the cables that held up entire houses were thick as tree branches. “My ladies weary of camping,” she added. “They require permanent housing, worthy of them.”  
“What caused this?” he asked. “Who is paying the Dwarves?” He certainly was not going to, and he flashed suddenly to the Dwarves he yet held in pits. He had almost forgotten about them, busy as he was with his work and watching Felagund and Beren.  
“It began when Vrame found a husband,” she lied. “Now, all the girls want one, and they were fairly easy to come by, and so now they want to remove. My ladies have saved every gold piece they earned, with which to purchase their houses in our new home. Also, much gold we have yet promised the Dwarves, but since we have paid much already, they continue their work. It will be beautiful, and glorious, and wholly new. Nothing like it has ever been attempted before! I shall create a race of Elves with demonic blood, and the innate abilities and magic of the Outer Planes shall be within them. They are fine creatures,” she said, emphasizing her words, “Much finer than orcs or ogres. I know every one, I drink their blood, and every one worships me. All live or die for the privilege of serving me, and those who gain my favor are greatly rewarded; and some I make into other beings.” This was true, she did create other creatures, but she made them do it to themselves, out of devotion to her and a desire to rise in power and influence. “The Elves whom I favor the most I have made into vampires, along with a few mortal men. Thus, they have a need for blood, like the spiders…” She was gloating as far as he was concerned, flaunting her success at him. She did not tell the truth, either; she knew the time of his defeat was very near, but there existed the possibility for her to acquire a very valuable servant and great power. A smaller chance as well, to acquire several fine servants, who would enable her to not only rule without question, but to command enemies and neighbors. She was thrilled with the possibility, and laid her many potential plans, with herself the winner in every web she wove.  
“What if I double every demoness’ wages?” He offered, and then he stopped and asked a far more important question. “What about you and I?”  
“We will stay for awhile, and then we are moving into the underground property we have purchased from the dwarves, and you are welcome to come with us. I loved you before, and so I do still! I have followed you to this place, this tower which you have chosen and remain in, and I am yet here. Have you forgotten me?”  
“Of course not!” he exclaimed, tired of her already. Had she nothing to do but torment him and let her ladies drape her in gowns?  
“I want you back,” she smiled, taking his hand, “Like you used to be, in the gardens of Valinor, when you were breathtakingly handsome, and you would smile at me, and we laughed at everyone else. I remember a time when all the ladies would have thought themselves fortunate to be with you. Do you remember that now?”  
“Of course I remember that,” he said, as though the question were foolish. “Who else might be worthy of even speaking to?” Sauron was peeved, he required faithful servants. “What about my work? What about the Master?”  
“Your Master does not care about us!” Arachnae chided him. “And never has! The Old Ones care nothing for any of the living! Nor do they acknowledge the dead! All is but energy for them to feed upon. You have seen it, as have I. Refute him; what does he have to offer us? Nothing! Shun those things of the outer planes, and mourn not their absence. Get rid of those orcs and come with us! We are making a new land of magic and faerie. This is my great project, and they shall all worship me, the Spider Goddess. Come, you shall be my mate.”  
Sauron scowled, distrustful. “I saw how it went for Melkor and Ungoliant,” he snapped. “I do not agree to be eaten. Besides, I have a great work to do.”  
Arachnae looked around in disgust. “Eaten! Eaten!” she screamed in insult. “This? This is your great work? This is an ugly pit from which teams with even more hideous beings!” she snapped.  
“It doesn’t matter what it looks like,” he growled. “It is the work, the planning, that is important.”  
“Planning what?” she accused. “To make the entirety of Middle Earth a festering pit like this one?”  
He scowled, and moved to remove the special bottle from his pocket. He growled at her, but still she persisted in her irritating complaining. He began preparing in his mind a spell of sufficient strength to bind her.   
She felt that he was about to cast a spell, and moved out of his range, “My ladies want more than piles of corpses, as do I! Come with us, or do not expect my ladies to work past the next three weeks!” Arachnae said, and then left.   
Irritated, the dark lord returned to his stitching, having lost his concentration, and all because of the foolish demoness’ ridiculous ideas of underground palaces. Arachnae would change her mind, he told himself. The spider women and their elven mates weren’t going anywhere; she was probably angling for more gold, thinking she could extract it from him by threatening to leave. He put the bottle in his pocket. Putting Arachnae in it guaranteed her women wouldn’t leave, they were bound to her and he would have bound Arachnae. Then he could lower their pay in the process; perhaps to nothing. The vampires and shadow elves were arrogant, and they were irritating him more and more. Enslaving them would be a sheer delight. Yes, he thought to himself, the time had certainly come to stopper up Arachnae’s complaining, perhaps forever.  
Arachnae was well aware of Sauron’s disinterest in her plans, and his unwillingness to aid her in any way. The underground city was nearly complete, and the time of the Calling was close at hand. However, she had several more visits to make first.

 

Defecting from his former masters bothered Huan greatly, but he knew that evil had come upon them, and that aiding Luthien was the right thing to do. He ran tirelessly through the forest, their destination the pits of Angband.  
Soon enough, the towers of Sauron’s realm loomed before them, a grinning pair of troll-like Ogaards lumbering around at the entrance. Luthien slipped easily past them, staring as they did simply out at the world.  
Before she reached the pits; she saw a lovely elven woman sitting on a rock beside the road. She wore a gown of black and red, woven as if of dark spider’s webs, her long black hair trailing the ground as the wind blew around her as she sat, skin so pale and white it almost glowed with its own light, and perfect red lips smiling at Luthien in greeting.   
Huan growled at the vampire, smelling blood and death, but Luthien stilled him, wanting to know who and why this was. She put her hand on his head gently, indicating that he should wait and be still. Elves did not attack one another without cause; yet Celegorm and Curufin had become evil for love of the Silmarils, so she proceeded cautiously.   
Luthien stood quietly before her, wondering. She felt something similar to her own mother’s energy from this one, the power and potential was so vast, and the feeling of past and future pounding around her like waves upon a rock. This was no elf, but another Maiar spirit. “Why are you lingering here, outside the gates of death?” Luthien finally asked.  
The woman smiled and stood up, her gown flowing around her like a spider’s web floating upon the breeze. “I have been waiting for you. There is much for us to discuss. We are kindred, Melian’s daughter, for it is a rare thing to be of Maiar spirit and Elvenkind,” the strange woman said.  
“It is,” Luthien agreed, distrusting the elven woman, “And even stranger yet to find such a person lingering outside the pits of Angband.”  
A very pleased smile spread across the stranger’s face, hands clasped behind her back like an errant child, a look of sweet, but proud and kind pity upon her face, and she proclaimed proudly, “I am now the goddess of a new race of Elves,”  
“That would be an amazing thing indeed,” Luthien agreed, “Who might these new elves be?” She had a feeling of evil creeping forth towards her from the woman, and she was wary. Her hand drifted over to the sword at her side. Her hand upon it brought back all of Beren’s words to her, and she felt comforted by it. For him, and for the captives held within, she was here, and she would fulfill her own quest.  
“They are the people of the spider and the earth,” Arachnae responded with joy and a lovely smile, “Newly arisen, and I am their goddess.”  
Luthien was unsure, and was not certain what reaction she should have, but feeling as though there were spiders walking on her. “Strange and unusual it would be for such a thing to occur, and stranger still outside the Isle of Sauron. What is your name?”  
“I am Arachnae,” the stranger said, her voice soothing and melodic, “And I know why you have come here, and whom you seek, as I wove the thread of his life myself, from the finest silver. He is very handsome, I would risk the very fires of the pits to rescue such a one as well!” the woman laughed. “I would help you.”  
“How so?” Luthien asked cautiously. A potential ally was never to be refused, yet treachery was always a possibility.  
“I know where he is and where he is bound, as well as his companions. One of my ladies has brought them food and water during their long captivity. Very soon now we will leave this debased place, and we shall all remove together under the earth for my new realm is now nearly complete. See here, for this is my city, made with great magic, and I have endeavored to use some of the same magic employed by Melian in the protection of her realm.” She held out her hand, and floating in the air, set against a dark background, was a city of glittering lights, all of it flowed with a bluish green luminosity. It was beautiful, and Luthien paused a moment to admire it. It did indeed remind her of the caves of Menegroth, but carved from the stalactites of the ceiling as well, which dove down the way the stalagmites had been carved into great spires. Palaces and floating platforms glowed with faerie magic and roofs of mithril and gold, arching bridges from looming tower to raised stone arch. Platforms floated in the air. “It will be a wonder such as none have ever seen before, and lit entirely with magical fires. Is it not beautiful? It is almost ready, as I speak, we need only inhabit and decorate. The Dwarves built it, but it awaits the Elves to make it truly wondrous and magical.”  
“What would you ask of me in return?” Luthien asked, knowing full well this had a price to it. She then had the strong feeling that Arachnae was withholding a vital piece of information.  
“You would be one of my ladies, and come with us to help beautify and light our fairyland beneath the earth. Does the creation of a new realm not excite you?”  
“I cannot agree to that, nor can I promise anything,” Luthien answered.  
“Your quest is unnecessary,” Arachnae told her. “I have heard of it. Your quest is to cut a Silmaril from the very crown of Morgoth? That is a fool’s errand, maliciously meant to send the man you love to his doom. Death lies before his feet, sooner rather than later, if you choose that path. Many curses lie upon the Silmarils, of which the Curse of Mandos is but only one. There will always be fighting over such things. The grottos and pits of Morgoth are not navigable as is this, but are instead under water and magic portal. It cannot be accessed by breathing creatures save by magic, and the Silmarils you seek are well lost. Good riddance to them!” Arachnae exclaimed. “What use does anyone have for the jewels of discord, except to throw at others, that they might go destroy themselves with them? Even if your quest is successful, by some strange twist of fate, the chances of being waylaid upon your return journey are high indeed. Why take such risks when you might come with us; you and your beloved can live there happily together for eternity. Why take the road to doom set out for you by others when I can offer so much more? I can withhold the curse of death. We can make him your husband tonight; and young for all eternity. What you truly seek is not in the pits of Morgoth at all.”  
“How is that possible?” Luthien asked, wondering what that could possibly entail. “Death is the gift of Illuvatar to men, and it is not our choosing whether or not to withhold it.”  
“It is easy enough for me to give immortality; I am a far more active goddess than most,” Arachnae laughed, “Except perhaps for yourself, who also runs about chasing handsome men. I think Beren would make a very handsome, beautiful vampire. Not such as Sauron makes,” Arachnae assured her, “Those debased and disgusting creatures; much like most of his creations. I prefer to create beautiful beings, and so he would not be a monster, but rather an elegant vampire, tall, handsome, and graceful, with powers and strength much greater than he has now. Eternally young and attractive, just as you would remain,” the dark goddess smiled, in an almost friendly way. A light appeared in her hand, much as the image of the city had, in which Beren was young forever, and they could be together always. They walked hand in hand down crystal lined streets and magic filled the air. “Think clearly upon it, and what say you? Even if your quest succeeds, you will still be parted by death. I can prevent that from happening, and spare us all the wrath of Melkor.”  
Luthien paused, and was tempted for a moment, but she knew that there were unsaid costs to this offer. Vampires drank blood, like spiders, and the gift of Illuvatar was not going to be withheld, but rather given and then bought back at a terrible price. “I cannot accept your offer, enticing though it is. I knew what I wanted when I came here, and I must now go finish it.”  
“Be sure, there is not time for long debate. If you accept my offer now, there may yet be time to save his companions; a bestial werewolf prepares to descend the pit and destroy them both as we speak.” The scene in the magical glowing globe changed, to the surroundings of Sauron’s Isle, and down into a dark pit, where lay Beren and his friends, including Finrod Felagund, King of Nargothrond, and their companions. You must choose and go quickly! Accept my offer or no?”  
Luthien gasped at the thought of Beren torn apart by a werewolf, and then stopped herself from panicking. “Then I must go to him now, and can no longer delay here with you.”  
“The road you have chosen is the hardest, and most likely to end in disaster!” Arachnae declared, “To the ruin of all!”  
“I find it difficult to believe that your motive is the safety and welfare of all the peoples of Middle Earth,” Luthien said politely.  
“My care is for my own people, and for my new city, which is nearer to the den of Melkor than your own!” Arachnae said.  
“It will not be yours for long, unless you pay for that which you have otherwise stolen,” Luthien said. “You plan to cheat the dwarves for all their hard work, and would thus earn for all elves’ their long hatred. I will not be a part of that battle.”  
“I did not ask you for dire prophecies!” Arachnae said angrily. “I came here to help you and ask you to help me in return! You will not aid me but will rather steal from ancient evil that which is most precious in his eyes and bring his wrath and doom down upon all of us!”   
“The curse of Mandos was wrought long ago, and like all curses, it must work its way through.”  
“I am offering you an easier, more sensible way. Your refusal baffles me.”  
“Thank you for the offer, but I cannot accept. And now I must depart, to save Beren and the others from the werewolf.”  
“A noble idea, but it will not work. Have sense!”  
“You want my help to defend yourself against the wrath of the dwarves for the theft of their work. Have sense yourself, and pay them!”  
“Does your plan not also involve stealing? Mine is better! Come with us!”  
Luthien shook her head, no.  
“But I need you to help me!”  
But Luthien still shook her head, firm in her refusal, and Arachnae began to sing, and hundreds of voices answered. Demonesses, dark elves, and men stopped what they were doing and joined the song. Luthien’s hand went to her sword, and Arachnae stepped out of her way. “I would not fight you, daughter of Melian, I do not fight losing battles, and you are worth far more to me alive than dead!” Arachnae laughed, turning into a wisp of cloud. An eerie calling went out across the hills, and there answered hundreds of voices, who all dropped what they were doing and prepared to follow her down into the depths.

The dark lord in his tower heard the chorus of eerie elven music, and scowled. Then he ran to look out of his windows, only to see every elf and demoness drop their work and begin singing, many men following them, the sound rippling through the air. He knew a spell when he heard it, and he then realized that they were truly leaving. As the song ended and faded away, so did the singers; and he suddenly realized, all of his gold and jewels. Rushing first to that vault that he kept his treasure in, he found it all gone, not even a copper remained on the floor. Arachnae had vanished and gone, taking her servants and devotees with her. He roared in rage at the theft of his treasure. Everything of value was gone, down to the last spider! There were only empty webs hanging on the rocks. Every demoness, every elf, every man of worth, and all the treasure had vanished. Sauron was furious; he would never again employ elves. Fickle, flighty, dance and sing all night drunken elves; they had willingly taken his gold, and now they vanished! He cursed Arachnae in rage, but the bottle in his pocket was useless. She was gone. Never again, he cursed aloud, never again would he trust or hire elves!   
His orcs and half orcs all remained, as did his werewolves, zombies, ogres, trolls, and some of the lesser men. There was an ominous stillness in the air.   
Though few of the companions remained, Sauron thought the mortal man and King Felagund with his talking were the cause of his loss, and sought to destroy them before any more damage could be done to his plans. Hatred drove him, and his eyes glowed red. No longer even appearing as man, fair and tall, he took on the form of a black knight, terrible and strong, and horrible to behold as his former shape had been pleasing.  
Although Sauron purposed to kill them both slowly and with great pleasure, as he had Edrahil and Ledrel, he heard something floating down from far above. Singing, sweet and fair, but with great penetrating power; even the singing of birds, long absent from that horrid land, accompanied her, as nightingales accompanied Melian. Beren emerged from the earth, and called up to the voice.  
“What is that infernal tweeting and tootling?” Sauron raged, disliking the sound intensely. Then he realized only one of two creatures could make such a sound like a singing nightingale. Wrapped in his black thoughts, he smiled, knowing that he heard the daughter of Melian. Therein he pointed to another of his minions, a werewolf, and told him to slay the mortal man within the pit. Then another he sent, to kill the others.  
Thinking only of saving Beren, she walked past more of the stupid Ogaards, and Huan killed them after she had passed. Looking around after Arachnae had taken her leave of Sauron, her elves, demonesses and evil men had disappeared with her to create for themselves a realm of their own. So it was that Luthien saw only orcs and trolls around her, so she cast a death spell upon all evil creatures. When they heard her voice; they felt an immediate cold that brought sweet, narcotic dreams of whatever they most desire. Freezing to death while dreaming of eating, many of the orcs, trolls, and evil men slumped over to rest for just a moment, and never rose again. Thus she took the bridge easily, killing all those who heard her voice, save the prisoners, amongst whom she was looking for Beren.  
Some of the stupider trolls and ogres, who had so little intelligence that it overrode the survival instinct, took up their clubs and rude weapons, and rushed at Luthien. She shot them with the silver arrows, and tossed them easily aside like pieces of wood left out on the walkway, leaving a trail of destruction behind her. By force of will alone they fell aside, but the rougher ones kept at her. She glowed with the force of the Maiar, and the angrier she became, the stronger her force became, creating a hum, and the reverberations from her presence shook the stronghold to its foundations. Light pierced dark holds that had been long sundered from the sunshine. Bridges shook, metal chains fell apart, and captives fled as their bonds broke. Deep in the pit, the chains of Felagund were loosened, and he broke free of them. She intended to destroy this stronghold of hell utterly, monster by monster if need be, and anywhere was a good place to start.  
Sauron sensed her approach, as one would hear the roar of a hurricane. This was what he had waited for. She had come for the man she loved, and by entrapping her, he would demand concessions from Melian. An immortal spirit created a vulnerable spot by creating a child such as this one. He prepared the bottle, the one he had made for trapping a goddess, but he had not quite foreseen which one. Thus he intended to trap Luthien inside of it, and hold her forever if need be. But it would not, he knew. Melian and Thingol would give him all he asked from return for their dear child. He laughed to himself. The mortal boy he would either let a werewolf kill in the pit, or perhaps keep alive to play off of Luthien. Felagund he would soon put to death, not wanting Felagund and Luthien alive here together at the same time. He knew better than to let his enemies gather together. He stroked the bottle with his fingers, savoring his victory, and priding himself on his foresight and power.   
Sauron sent his werewolves to attack her. She shot most of them with her silver arrows, piercing the hearts of the werewolves as they leapt at her, and Huan killed the others. By sheer force of will, she would prevail. For many years, she had studied spells and sorcery, but they were only stepping stones to funneling the rage she felt. Luthien had no tolerance for evil.  
Huan followed behind her, guarding the rear. Any creature that dared to stealthily crawl behind the goddess was summarily destroyed, and many stealthy werewolves were seized by the hound. Then Sauron sent Draugluin, a dread beast, old in evil, lord and sire of the werewolves in Angband. His might was great; and the battle of Huan and Draugluin was long and fierce. Yet at length Draugluin escaped, and fleeing back into the tower he died before Sauron’s feet; and as he died he told his master: “Huan is there!” Now Sauron knew well, as did all in that land, the fate that was decreed for the Hound of Valinor, and it came into his thought that he himself would accomplish it. Therefore he planned to take upon himself the form of a werewolf, and make himself the mightiest that had yet walked the world; and he came forth to win the passage of the bridge. First, he thought, he would entrap Luthien within the bottle.  
Sauron met her on the field. He stood there, in the form of a man with wings, black and leathery, his eyes red and bloodshot. “So you have come, half breed.”  
“Release every prisoner, and yield the tower to me, then and only then shall I let you live,” she told him.  
“Do you think yourself mighty for having killed orcs and ogres? Any brigand from the hills might do as much. Now I will keep you forever for my own purposes, as you have foolishly come here of your own will.” So saying, he began a song of binding, of trapping and torment, and a mighty wind arose, which came to sweep her off of her feet and into the terrible bottle.  
Yet, she stood there, helped by placing her hand upon Huan, singing a spell of freedom and peace. The wind ceased, and once again she demanded that he yield unto her the tower and all that lay around it.  
He stood there, stunned for a moment that she should have the strength to resist his spell. So he gazed upon her, filled with fury, her hair standing up on end, sparks flying from her fingertips, yet he knew that this one was not his doom. Not this one, not yet… But why did it feel so close? Then he blew at her, hoping to choke her and ruin her spells; and the foul vapor of his breath caused her to involuntarily recoil, and then he sprang upon Luthien. Even as he came at her, she held her breath and cast a fold of her dark cloak before his eyes, and he stumbled, for a fleeting drowsiness came upon him. Then Huan sprang, and Sauron forgot Luthien for a moment, and changed himself into the form of a mighty wolf, thinking to kill Huan himself and take the title of the mightiest wolf. There befell the battle of Huan and Wolf-Sauron, and the howls and baying echoed in the hills, and the watches on the walls of Ered Wiethrin across the valley heard it afar and were dismayed.  
But no wizardry nor spell, neither fang nor venom, nor devil’s art nor beast strength, could overthrow Huan of Valinor; and he took his foe by the throat and pinned him down. Then Sauron shifted shape, from wolf to serpent, and from monster to his own accustomed form; but he could not elude the grip of Huan without forsaking his body utterly. Ere his foul spirit left its dark house, Luthien came to him, and said that he should be stripped of his raiment of flesh, and his ghost be sent quaking back to Morgoth; and she said; “There everlastingly thy naked self shall endure the torment of his scorn, pierced by his eyes, unless thou yield to me the mastery of thy tower.”  
“Yes, the tower is yours,” he lied, and Huan released him. Wounded, he turned into a vampire, dripping blood, and turned upon her again, trying to foul her with his blood. Huan once again leapt upon him, realizing his treachery, and purposed now to slay him utterly, for even in defeat he could not be let to go. Huan shook and shook, until all visible signs of life were gone from the body.  
Then Sauron yielded himself, leaving the dark house of flesh, and Luthien snatched up the bottle, and singing the spell…

Now foul spirit of darkness,  
Trapped in this bottle  
Therein to wait  
Til the end of the world

She trapped his foul spirit inside the bottle, which he had specially prepared to hold within it great power, but which now contained him. The spirit within the bottle raged, turning from black to brown, to sickly green and then back again to black. Luthien held it, and the bottle began to heat up from inside. She wondered then what to do with it.  
“Throw it,” Huan told her. “I will not fetch it.” Laughing, Luthien threw the bottle with all her strength into the fetid swamp, and there it lay, sinking into the mud, for many years.  
Then Luthien stood and declared her power and intent; and the spell was loosed that bound stone to stone, and the gates were thrown down, and the walls opened, and the pits laid bare; and many thralls and captives came forth in wonder and dismay, shielding their eyes against the pale moonlight, for they had lain long in the darkness of Sauron. Slaves threw down their instruments and tools, some rejoicing, others fleeing. So she released the prisoners, cutting bonds, freeing captives from cages, and bursting chains. They followed her, knowing the light of the Valar and liberation when they saw it. Those evil creatures that yet lived fled at her approach, lest her sight fall upon them. Orcs and half orcs fled madly into the hills, trolls and ogres lumbered off to find new caves and holes to hide in. Once freed, the captives unchained one another, freeing her for the task finding Beren.

While Luthien battled her way into the foul realm of Sauron, Finrod Felagund and Beren lay in the pit, no one having come to bring them up for work, or had brought them any food or water. Most of their companions were dead; their bones still lying at the bottom of the pit, for Sauron had purposed to keep Felagund alive to the last, for he perceived that he was a Noldor of great might and wisdom, and he deemed that in him lay the true secret of their errand. The captives heard the approach of Luthien and Huan, calling out to them, but the minions of Sauron arrived first. The werewolf leapt into the pit, first planning to kill Beren, but Felagund put forth all his power and he wrestled with the werewolf, as it snapped and snarled at him, rending with its foul teeth. The taste of blood, especially sweet elf blood, drove the wolf into battle frenzy, clawing and biting at everything before it. Moving quickly, Beren took his stance and jabbed the beast in the eyes with his own fingers. It howled horribly, and then Felagund slew it with his hands and teeth; as the mighty beast fell on top of him with its last snarl. Yet he himself had already been wounded to the death. Beren rolled the stinking creature off of the elf, and seeing his grievous wounds, tried to bind them using shredded pieces of cloth from the remains of his companions’ clothing. Yet Beren quickly realized the wounds were too many and too deep to be staunched by the pressure from dirty rags.  
Then Felagund spoke to Beren, saying, “Not willingly do I abandon you, my friend, but I go now to my long rest in the timeless halls beyond the seas and the mountains of Aman. It will be long ere I am seen among the Noldor again; and it may be that we shall not meet again in death or life, for the fates of our kindreds are often apart. Farewell!” He died then in the dark, in Tol-in-Gaurhoth, whose great tower he himself had built, long ago. Thus King Finrod Felagund, fairest and most beloved of the house of Finwe, redeemed his oath; but Beren mourned beside him in despair, singing a song of farewell.  
Luthien heard his singing, and though she startled at the melody and the words, she knew the voice. It was he, Beren, and so she sang in response, but heard no reply. Searching the desolate landscape, she at last found him motionless at the bottom of a pit. The surviving companions called up to her, and she threw down a rope to them. So deep was Beren’s anguish over Felagund’s death that he did not hear her feet. Overflowing with words of gratitude, they climbed up, and thanked her yet again for their freedom. But Luthien quickly descended the rope, finding herself in a dismal scene of death and carnage. Bones and blood littered the floor, Beren and Felagund lying motionless. Then thinking herself too late, and him already dead she put her arms around him and fell into a dark forgetfulness. But Beren coming back to the light out of the pits of despair woke her again and lifted her up, and they looked again upon one another; and the day rising over the dark hills shone upon them.  
She spoke first, “Beren, it is I. This is no vision, I am real! Huan and I have broken open the prisons of death to save you! Awake!”  
Slowly he woke from his torpor of misery, to see that she really was there, and that sunlight shone once again upon the hills and valleys, they were prisons and pits no longer. People were lifting their injured companions and walking away, going home. “Is this real?” He asked in a daze.   
“Yes, it is real! Such is the depth of my devotion to you!”  
“And others thank you from the bottoms of their hearts!” he told her. “Yet, my love, it is too late for my friend. It is a cruel irony that, whist you have come in time to save me, my friend and companions died in the darkness.”  
“I would have come sooner, if I could have, but I was first imprisoned by my father, and then once I had escaped his sorcery, was waylaid by selfish fools, who held me captive in Nargothrond.”  
“How?” he asked in wonderment, “How did you do it all by yourself?”  
“When I entered this place, and saw what was going on, I became so angry I could not help myself, I could not simply negotiate for your freedom, I had to destroy it utterly. You know I cannot abide the torment of any living thing, and this place stank with it.”  
They buried the body of Felagund upon the hill-top of his own isle, and it was clean again; and the green grave of Finrod Finarfin’s son, fairest of all the princes of the Elves, remained inviolate, until the land was changed and broken, and foundered under destroying seas. But Finrod Felagund walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.  
Before they left, they and the remaining Companions dismantled all of Sauron’s evils, and destroyed the remaining creatures of evil. The black horses they set free, and any other hapless creatures they found. Luthien was horrified by Sauron’s work, and together they destroyed abomination after abomination. Bottles containing souls and blood were smashed, setting the spirits contained within free. Amidst Sauron’s gory wares they found only one treasure that remained from the spell of Arachnae, the Ring of Felagund. Beren reclaimed it, in memory of his friend.  
Of great sorrow to her were the monsters Sauron had created from the once noble dragons. Ravenous creatures that ate flesh, breathed fire, and lusted after gold though they knew not what to do with it; they killed all that they could. The great Wyrms having fled at Luthien’s approach, they were saddened to realize that these monsters were now loose within Middle Earth, and that they would still cause terrible damage everywhere they went. Having undone all of Sauron’s evil, they departed for happier lands. While destroying a storeroom of evil spell components, Beren found again the Ring of Felagund, which he took up once more in honor of his friend. Their quest seeming to have unraveled, and saddened by the loss of their friends and the king, the remaining Companions departed, leaving Beren and Luthien once again alone. Then, Huan being faithful went back to Celegorm his master; yet their love was less than before, and Celegorm wondered mightily at the look on Huan’s face, and what adventure his hound had gone on. 

Now Beren and Luthien Tinuviel went free again and together walked through the woods renewing for a time their joy; and though winter came it hurt them not, for the flowers lingered where Luthien went, and the birds sang beneath the snowclad hills. Huan went with them for a time, and Luthien told Beren of her imprisonment, and her treatment at the hands of the brothers, and they both agreed that evil had indeed come to Nargothrond.

One morning, Luthien heard a sad peeping. “What is that sound?” she asked.  
Beren looked around carefully through the woods until he located the source of the peeping; a tiny silver lizard. He picked it up, and it rubbed its little head on his hand, and wrapped its tail around Beren’ wrist.  
Luthien looked surprised and exclaimed, “It’s a newly hatched silver dragon!”  
Beren smiled and said, “I love him!” holding the little lizard against his cheek, and it licked Felagund’s ring, trying to pry it off.  
“Oh, no, Beren, we cannot keep him, we are on a dangerous quest.”  
“I will care for him, and he loves me; see the way his rubs his little head against my hand? Besides, who else will care for him?”  
“His parents,” she answered. “Besides, do you know what a silver dragon eats?”  
“Fish?” Beren guessed. “He looks like he likes the water; and I found him beside the river.”  
“Where exactly did you find him?” she asked. Beren took her to the shallow spot in the river bend, where the water was clear and still, and pointed at a pile of broken oval stones. Rocklike on the outside, but glittering on the inside, they lay scattered around the riverside, many in a reedy nest. One tiny egg had just been broken open, the larger ones gone, as were the parents.  
“He’s all alone,” Beren pointed out. “His parents thought the little egg was a dud, so the rest of them left.” They both gazed out at the river. The baby dragon was trying to eat the Ring of Felagund, and Beren said, “He’s hungry.”  
Luthien laughed. “That is the normal state of dragons,” she told him. “So how are you going to feed him?”  
Wondering, Beren set the little dragon down, and he ate a rock. “Oh no, little dragon, don’t eat rocks!”  
“Maybe he’s supposed to,” Luthien wondered. “My mother would know for sure, but perhaps as ducks eat gravel and sand, he needs a few rocks in his stomach.” Indeed, the baby dragon greedily ate another quartz stone.  
“He likes the white ones,” Beren smiled, and then the baby went to the river and drank an amazing amount of water. The dragon’s scales were brilliantly shiny, like mithril or silver, his belly a soft blue, as were his feet and ears. The little dragon’s eyes shone like shimmering butterfly wings.  
Full, the dragon indicated to Beren that it once again wished to be picked up. Then it ate a silver button from Beren’ coat. Curious, he pulled a few more silver buttons off his coat and offered them to the baby dragon, which squeaked excitedly and ate them. “I think I figured out what he eats.”  
“Oh, what?” she asked, looking up into the sky, wondering about the rest of the dragons, and if they might return.  
“Treasure. He just ate five silver buttons. I think he eats gems and precious metals, just as Felagund once told me that the noble dragons of old did.” Feeling satisfied, the little dragon curled up and slept. “I am going to name him Crusher. Did you see the way he crunched those stones and metals? His teeth must be incredibly sharp and powerful.”  
“Yes, I did. Beren, you can feed a baby buttons, but what about when he grows? And he will grow, very large,” she emphasized.   
“Maybe he could help us,” Beren speculated. “He must have incredibly sharp teeth to be chewing up rocks.”   
“Perhaps in a few years,” she said, “But for now, all he does is squeak loudly for the buttons upon your coat and breeches.”  
“I cannot just leave him here,” Beren objected. “Something would eat him.”  
“Certainly you should take care of him, until we find a better plan.”  
So Beren found rocks that the little dragon would enjoy. Precious metals pleased him most, but he would grudgingly eat the common quartz crystals along the stream, and any agates he found. The next morning, they were astonished to discover that the baby dragon had grown to the size of Huan. The following morning, he was the size of a horse.   
“What should we do?” Luthien wondered aloud.  
“I’m not sure,” Beren said. “Only the dwarves would have enough excess metal ore and slag to feed a dragon who ate such things.”   
“Then we should ask them if they would like one,” she said.   
“I suppose it is as good a plan as any,” Beren agreed.   
So they then set off for the Dwarves’ Mountain, in no particular hurry, and the silver dragon was large indeed by the time they arrived. At first alarmed, the Dwarves put down their weapons and greeted them warmly when they recognized Luthien. Beren and Luthien told the dwarves of their quest, and the dwarf king promised to aid them. A great feast was prepared in their honor, and while they dined in the Hall of the Mountain King, the silver dragon helped himself to the enormous piles of jeweler’s slag and pot metal the dwarves had discarded as useless. The dwarves were delighted to be rid of their trash, and the dragon grew even larger, as he feasted on the heaps of imperfect or shattered gems and metal scraps. Every morning Beren went to him to rub his ears and polish his scales, which were now glowing in the light like the finest magical alloy of polished mithril, platinum and silver. His scales were tough as mithril shields, and were almost blinding in the light. He was magnificent, and growing ever larger. When Beren rubbed his ears, his satisfied purring rumbled the entire Mountain.   
Aside from Luthien’s warning to the Dwarf King that Arachnae’s debt would not be repaid, and that she had conscripted many Dwarves into her service whom she might not free once their term of bondage had ended, their stay was a pleasant one, full of food, wine, and stories told long into the night. For in those days, the dwarves and elves did not yet dislike one another. The shadow elves had not yet defaulted upon their promises, which had soured the Dwarves on all of Elvenkind, and made them suspicious of even the well-meaning ones.   
The time passed quickly, and although they were sad to leave the pleasantness of the Mountain King’s hall, Beren and Luthien knew that they must complete their quest. The king offered the aid of his army, but Luthien declined. “Not by force of arms will this quest be accomplished, but rather by secrecy and sorcery.”  
“We wish you well,” the king said, “And will outfit you well for your journey. Any armor you choose will be yours, and I would give you all the food and supplies you might need for your journey.”  
“We thank you for your kindness and hospitality,” Beren said. “May your halls be blessed.” Arrayed in finery, and supplied with food, water, and wine, they prepared to leave.   
“We will take excellent care of your dragon,” the king said. “I promise you he will be happy here; and thank you for bringing us a powerful defense against evil and other dragons, the feared fire drakes, who would steal our treasure.”   
“You are most welcome, but I will miss him. He needs to be soothed to sleep with firelight and songs, or he has bad dreams. Too much metal gives him a bellyache.” Beren thought then of any other useful information that might aid the dwarves in caring for his pet and friend, “He needs lots of water, and likes to splash around in it to clean himself. His kind are aqueous, and like to swim in the deep fresh rivers. He needs his scales polished as well, to keep that luster.”   
The dwarf king laughed, “Of course we will take good care of him, and you are welcome any time to visit or to reclaim him.”  
“If any force of good might aid us, then I will make that my goal,” Beren promised. “Yet, it is an almost hopeless quest, and I would return joyous beyond all hope, should the gods favor us so.”  
“Our good will goes with you,” the king said, “And if you need our aid, do not hesitate to call upon us. It would be my honor to fight beside you.”  
“I thank you, good King Under the Mountain. Yet, having seen one dear friend fall, and many other companions, I would rather spare all others such a fate. The day will soon come however, when elves, men, dwarves, and all other good creatures will stand together in one final battle against evil, and there you will have many opportunities to use your axe.”  
And so Beren and Luthien departed the dwarves in friendship, and began their long journey anew. 

There was tumult in Nargothrond. For thither now returned many Elves that head been prisoners in the isle of Sauron; and a clamour arose that no words of Celegorm could still. The remaining Companions told a terrible and bitter story of what had befallen the others. They lamented bitterly the fall of Felagund their king, saying that a maiden had done that which the sons of Feanor had not dared to do; but many perceived that it was treachery rather than fear that had guided Celegorm and Curufin. Therefore, the hearts of the people of Nargothrond were released from their dominion, and turned again to the house of Finarfin; and they obeyed Orodreth. But he would not suffer them to slay the brothers, as some desired, for the spilling of kindred blood by kin would bind the curse of Mandos more closely upon them all. Yet neither bread nor rest would he grant to Celegorm or Curufin within his realm, and he swore that there should be little love between Nargothrond and the sons of Feanor thereafter.  
“Let it be so!” Celegorm said, and there was a light of menace in his eyes; but Curufin smiled. Then they took horse and rode away like fire, to find their kindred in the east. But none would go with them, not even those that were of their own people; for all perceived that the curse lay heavily on the brothers, and that evil followed them. In that time Celebrimbor the son of Curufin repudiated the deeds of his father, and remained in Nargothrond; yet Huan followed still the horse of Celegorm his master.   
Northward they rode, for they intended in their haste to pass through Dimbar, and along the north marches of Doriath, seeking the swiftest road to Himring, where Maedhros their brother dwelt; and still they might hope with speed to traverse it, since it lay close to Doriath’s borders shunning the distant Mountains of Terror.  
Then it was that Beren and Luthien came in their wandering to the Forest of Brethil, and drew near at last to the borders of Doriath. Then Beren took thought of his vow; and against his heart he resolved, when Luthien was come again within the safety of her own land, to set forth once more. But she was not willing to be parted from him again, saying; “You must choose, Beren, between these two: to relinquish the quest and your oath and seek a life of wandering upon the face of the earth; or to hold to your word and challenge the power of darkness upon its throne. But on either road I shall go with you, and our doom shall be alike.”  
Even as they spoke together of these things, walking without heed of aught else, Celegorm and Curufin rode up, hastening through the forest; and the brothers espied them and knew them from afar. Then Celegorm turned his horse, and spurred it upon Beren, purposing to ride him down; but Curufin swerving stooped and lifted Luthien into his saddle, for he was a strong and cunning horseman. Then Beren sprang from before Celegorm full upon the speeding horse of Curufin that had passed him; and took Curufin by the throat from behind, and hurled him backward, and they fell to the ground together. The horse reared and fell, but Luthien was flung aside, and lay upon the grass.  
Then Beren throttled Curufin, thinking to rid the world of his treasonous lying, and death was near him, when Celegorm rode upon him with a spear. In that hour Huan forsook the service of Celegorm, and sprang upon him, so that his horse swerved aside, and would not approach Beren because of the terror of the great hound. Celegorm cursed both hound and horse, but Huan was unmoved. Then Luthien rose, and forbade the slaying of Curufin; but Beren despoiled him of his gear and weapons and took his knife, Angrist. That knife was made by Telchar of Nogrod, and hung sheathless by his side; iron it would cleave as if it were green wood.   
Then Beren lifting Curufin flung him as far as possible, and then bade him “Walk back to your kinsfolk, if they will take you, and teach you to use your valor to worthier uses. Your horse I keep for the service of Luthien, and it may be accounted happy to be free of such a master.”  
Then Curufin cursed Beren under cloud and sky. “Go forth, foolish and uncouth mortal man, unto a swift and bitter death, and may we account ourselves lucky to be rid of you.”  
“Leave now,” Luthien told him sternly, with an unaccustomed venom in her voice that Beren had never imagined before, “I have spared your life, do not seek to strain my patience further.”  
Celegorm then took his brother beside him on his horse, and the brothers then made as if to ride away; and Beren turned away and took no heed of their words. But Curufin, being filled with shame and malice, took the bow of Celegorm and shot back as they went; and the arrow was aimed at Luthien. Huan leaping caught it in his mouth, but Curufin shot again, and Beren sprang before Luthien, and the dart smote him in the breast.   
Huan dropped the dart and pursued the sons of Feanor, his former masters, who had become unworthy of his love and devotion. The brothers fled in fear; and after he had pursued them a fair distance, he spoke to them, saying, “Never the Silmarils shall you ever lay eyes. The demoness Arachnae spoke of a place for the fallen elves; seek it, for she is waiting eagerly for you.” They gasped in surprise to hear the hound speak in words, and the message that he spoke echoed in their heads, and then the hound turned and sped off into the brush. Returning to Luthien, he brought to her some herbs to staunch the flow of Beren’s wound, and heal it of the venom the arrows had been dipped in. With that leaf she staunched the wound, and by her arts and by her love, she healed him, and thus they returned to Doriath. There Beren being torn between his oath and his love, and knowing Luthien to now be safe, arose one morning before the sun, and committed her to the care of Huan; who shook his head sadly at the foolishness of men and elves, and then in great anguish, Beren departed while she yet slept upon the grass.  
He rode northward again with all speed to the Pass of Sirion, and coming to the skirts of Taur-nu-Fuin he looked out across the waste and saw the peaks of Thangorodrim. There he dismissed the horse of Curufin, and bade it leave servitude and run free upon the green grass in the lands of Sirion.   
“Awaken, my lady,” Huan nosed Luthien, “Your beloved has once again decided to save you from the chains of mortality by wandering off.”  
“Oh no!” Luthien cried in distress, leaping up with tears beginning to flow down her cheeks. “Which way did he go and when?”  
“On to Angband alone, thinking to save you the unhappiness,” Huan explained, “Of mortality, want and pain.”   
“But I already know about those things!” she cried. “He thinks that I live in some sort of isolated bliss, but it is not so! Death I have seen, but also the rebirth of spring. Magic I have known, and magic I can perform, but to create a good and noble creature such as the one you and I have let slip away, only Illuvatar himself has the power.”  
Then, feeling pity for her tears, he said, “Here, ride upon my back, and we shall fly like the wind.” Luthien did as Huan bade, and she rode upon him once more. Faintly and on the wind, they heard his song, 

Farewell sweet earth and northern sky,  
For ever blest since here did lie  
And here with lissome limbs did run  
Beneath the Moon, beneath the Sun,  
Luthien Tinuviel  
More fair than mortal tongue can tell  
Though all to ruin fell the world  
And were dissolved and backward hurled  
Unmade into the old abyss  
Yet were its making good for this  
The dusk, the dawn, the earth, the sea  
That Luthien for a time should be…

And he sang aloud, caring not what ear should overhear him, for he was desperate and looked for no escape.  
But Luthien heard his song, as did Huan, and she sang in answer, as she came through the woods unlooked for. For Huan, having consented once more to be her steed; had borne her swiftly and hard upon Beren’s trail. Long had he pondered in his heart what counsel he could devise for the lightening of the peril of these two whom he loved, with the deep nobility and kindness of his heart. He turned aside therefore at Sauron’s isle, as they ran northward again, and he took thence the ghastly wolf hame of Draugluin, and the bat-fell of Thuringwethil. She was the messenger of Sauron, and was wont to fly in vampire’s form to Angband; and her great fingered wings were barbed at each joint’s end with an iron claw. Clad in these dreadful garments Huan and Luthien ran through Taur-nu-Fuin, and all things fled before them.   
Beren sensing their approach was dismayed, and he wondered for he had heard the voice of Tinuviel, and he thought it now a phantom for his ensnaring. Then they halted and cast aside their disguise, and Luthien ran towards him, and thus Beren and Luthien met again between the desert and the wood. For a while he was silent, and he was glad; but after a space he strove once more to dissuade Luthien from her journey.  
“Thrice now I curse my oath to Thingol,” he said, and I would that he had slain me in Menegroth, rather than that I should bring you under the shadow of Morgoth.”  
“Who was it,” she then asked him, “Who was it, who defeated and trapped Sauron within the bottle? It was I, and your quest has a much greater chance of success if I am with you. I love you, Beren, and I am no withering princess to lie in a tower and await rescue. You taught me how to shoot a bow and wield a sword, and I have with me both; the arrows indeed were vital, and in a way, your counsel saved your own life. That, and my sorcery is the stronger yet, as I defeated Sauron.”  
“I left you with Huan in your own realm, for it is my desire that you should live, and have a long and happy life. I see what my presence has done to you; put you always in harm’s way, and risking your life for me. You are more important than me. I will die anyway, tomorrow or in another hundred or so years. What difference does it make? How can I in good conscience take you with me? I felt like a must do something, to save you from me, and from yourself. Leaving was the best thing I could do.”  
“But I have free will,” she answered simply. “I alone will decide who I marry and when. I also have the freedom to decide when I die. If that is the uniqueness you worry so much for, stop troubling yourself.”  
“Do you already know what is going to happen?” he asked in amazement.  
“Not all of it, the future changes because you also have free will, as do other people, but things happen when it is time for them to happen. Some are foretold, and some events are the will of other gods; and I cannot divine their purposes, only try to explain their actions. Our fates are entwined; and no matter how much more important, beautiful, or special you may think I am than you, our bond is one that cannot be broken by time, distance, or the displeasure of others.”  
“And am I selfish enough to accept it?”  
“You already have it. It will only be wasteful and irritating if you insist upon spending the remainder of your life questioning it.”   
Beren stood quietly, holding the beautiful woman in his arms, in awe yet consumed with doubt. “You saw what happened to the captives, slaves, and thralls of Sauron,” he said softly, “Angband will be worse, for the Tower of Sauron was but the watchtower for the greater evil. I implore you to reconsider, for I have sworn myself to an errand of death, but you have foresworn no such thing, and may yet live.”  
“But I have,” she answered. “Many times I swore my love to you, and so it remains. But what really surprised me, is that you now sing so beautifully. How is that so?”  
“It was the death of my friend Felagund,” then he explained, his throat and eyes becoming tight, “Finrod Felagund, and he said I was Beor returned again, and at his death something within me rose up, and gave voice to my feelings, instead of fumbling with words.” Luthien had no answer.  
Then Beren remembered the words of Huan, as they had camped upon the grass, saying, “From the shadow of death you can no longer save Luthien, for by her love she is now subject to it. You can turn from your fate and lead her into exile, seeking peace in vain while your life lasts. But if you will not deny your doom, then either Luthien, being forsaken, must assuredly die alone, or she must with you challenge the fate that lies before you, hopeless, but not certain. Further counsel I cannot give, nor may I go further upon your road. But my heart forebodes that what you find at the Gate I myself shall see. All else is dark to me, yet it may be that our three paths lead back to Doriath, and we may meet again before the end.”  
Then Beren perceived that Luthien could not be divided from the doom that lay upon them both, and at that, he sought no longer to dissuade her, but rather to protect her. He accepted that she had, of her own free will, chosen him over immortality, because she loved him, and was greatly moved by it. To be honored thus was a blessing no man deserved, but once given, a gift to be cherished above all else. “So shall it be,” he agreed.   
She smiled happily, “No more doubts, or running off for my own good?”  
“No, such actions and counsel have proved misguided in the past,” he agreed, “And I am still awed by your ability to confront evil. A maiden destroyed the Dark Lord, so they say in Nargothrond and beyond, a great and powerful deed that will be remembered forever in songs and legends. I will put my faith in your counsel, and Huan’s, yet, I now must point out that Morgoth will not be so easily overthrown. We cannot hope to win in direct confrontation; other friends made that error.”  
“No, our original plan was the best, that we should go in secrecy and silence; although by now I am certain he has heard of us and our quest, and will be ware of our approach. Now, we have a need to be stealthier than ever. Where would he be, I wonder?”  
“He should spend this time in the deepest undersea grottos; but he will not,” Huan told them. “Such is the power of the Silmarils, that to continue to wear them upon his own head will cause him to remain in the form of a man. Thus, in Angband he remains.”   
“So spoke Felagund,” Beren agreed. “However, he gave us enchanted rings that would enable us to breathe underwater. I have still his and mine, they were too humble for Sauron or any of his minions to notice, appearing as they do like a bit of dried leaf. One for you, and one for me,” he said, and he put a bit of twisted seaweed in the shape of a circle on her finger. She stared at it for a moment and laughed.   
“You were not wrong about the humbleness of this ring,” she smiled at him, and he cracked a smile despite himself. “It is tiny twig to bear such power.”  
“Felagund told me that the king of the aquatic elves had nothing else to use, all other metals had been made into weapons; they had none to spare. These he made so the Men of Numenor and the surface elves could join them underwater in battle.”  
“A noble heritage indeed for a bit of seaweed; and now I am eager to try its magic, and I am even more interested to know more of its history,” she pondered.   
“If watery depths we are to descend, there is a friend I would wish to take with us,” Beren said. “Assuming he has continued to grow at his former rate, our dragon would be large indeed by now, and should secrecy fail, and we need aid, he would be a most welcome ally.”  
“Then we shall pay a return visit to the Hall of the Mountain King, and ask if he will come with us. We can demand no one to accompany us, but rather those who volunteer must understand the perils they face.”  
Together they once again undertook the journey to the Mountain, and were once again greeted warmly by the King, because he knew them by name. It was as Luthien had feared, Arachnae and her shadow elves had indeed deceived the dwarves, and tricked them for all their hard work by not paying them. Those Dwarves who had remained in the city and demanded payment were killed. It was the beginning of the legacy of suspicion that was to sunder the races of Elves and Dwarves from one another, and cause them to forsake the good of friendship for mutual mistrust. For, the Elves of the surface being now viewed as poorly as their traitorous former kin, the Dwarves had as little contact with them as possible.  
To their surprise, the dragon had become enormous, far larger than they would have thought. “We fed him well,” the king laughed. The dragon was overjoyed to see Beren and Luthien returning for him, and agreed to accompany them upon their quest. The dwarf king gave them all the supplies they might want, and readied his men, should all the forces of Angband be stirred into action.  
By the counsel of Huan and the arts of Luthien he was arrayed now in the hame of Draugluin, and she in the winged fell of Thuringwethil. Beren was hesitant, the dragon even more so. They were suspicious of assuming any forms other than their own natural ones. Yet, they loved and trusted her enough to allow her magic to transform them.  
She cast the spell, and although it was uncomfortable, they opened their eyes to discover they were in forms they would never have been born in, being creatures of the sunlight, not the dark depths. She in the guise of a vampire, he camouflaged as a werewolf, though he fought with his own soul against even appearing against one of these, the creatures he hated so much and who had killed so many of his friends, but to fulfill their quest, he agreed, and the dragon had been condensed into the body of an immense ogre. A massive form for most beings, but for the great dragon to be crammed into such a shape was like wearing shoes that were far too small. He groaned and scratched, trying to relieve the pressure.   
“It is only for a little while,” Beren told him, “Until our great quest is completed. And it will surely end there, in one manner or another,” he added grimly.  
“That is no way to go into battle,” Luthien told him. “The mind can hold only one idea at a time, make it a good one.”

 

 

THE WATERY PITS OF MORGOTH

 

Going once more past the former tower of Sauron that had now become nothing but an empty relic, with piles of rubble everywhere, they entered a strange land indeed. Fetid and stinking as any swamp, yet alongside the path lurked vile things not found anywhere else. Deathweeds reeled up, flailing their tentacles for anything close by. Stenchblossoms opened their deadly petals, choking passersby with a noxious, foul odor that rendered its victims defenseless, as their eyes watered and their breath grew shallow, that other creatures might attack, and leave the bodies to the carnivorous plants. Tortured sounds erupted in the distance, and both Beren and Luthien were convinced of the wisdom of remaining upon the well trodden path, they heeded well the sounds of the creatures caught within the swamp.  
They stayed upon the path, as apparently did other creatures that were only accustomed to land. Trolls, ogres, and orcs stayed upon the path, glaring at them as they passed by. The orcs never questioned them, shying away from them, grateful not to have been approached. Strange, man-like creatures also shambled along beside the path; some singly, some in groups. They had dull, expressionless faces, narrow heads, and bulging, watery blue eyes that seemed never to blink, flat noses, receding foreheads and chins, and singularly undeveloped ears. Long thick lips and coarse-pored, grayish cheeks were always beardless except for some sparse hairs that straggled and curled in irregular patches; and in places the surface seemed queerly irregular, as if peeling from some cutaneous disease. The hands were always strangely large and heavily veined, and had a very unusual grayish-blue tinge. The fingers were strikingly short in proportion to the rest of the structure, and seemed to have a tendency to curl closely into the huge palms. They shambled oddly, in a peculiar way, unlike anything Beren and Luthien had ever seen before, and their feet were inordinately immense, reminding Beren of the creatures he had seen long ago, upon the mount. But those creatures had possessed fins, he thought to himself. Luthien was amazed and appalled, as if under some blanket spell, wanting to stop and inspect the horridly alien creatures, but every time she drifted downward, Beren would nip at her heels, and she would rise again.   
The terrain they passed over grew ever more aqueous, with deep fetid ponds surrounded by rank vegetation and miasmal vapors. Things lived in the pools, lurking ever beside the path, and seizing anything too close; ever watching with cold, reptilian eyes. Moldering orc boots and unused helmets now half covered in stinking mud and creeping weeds gave warning to what waited in the wetlands, its approach heralded only by the hideous odor of rotting fish.  
Beren’s nose, made more sensitive by his wolf’s shape; curdled and choked in nausea at the continuous, cloying scent of rotting life and pond scum. He leapt up towards where Luthien flew, hoping for a bit of fresh air, but found little relief. He sped up and ran faster, desiring to be out of this fetid wetland more than anything; a poisonous garden of foul vegetation and sickening odors. The dragon made coughing noises, and they knew that he was choking from the stench.  
They passed through all perils, until they came with the grime of their long and weary road upon them to the drear dale that lay before the Gate of Angband. Black chasms opened beside the road, whence forms as of writhing serpents issued. On either hand the cliffs stood as embattled walls, and upon them sat carrion fowl crying with fell voices. Before them was the impregnable Gate, an arch wide and dark at the foot of the mountain; above it reared a thousand feet of precipice.  
There dismay took them, for at the gate was a guard of whom no tidings had yet gone forth. Rumor of he knew not what designs abroad among the princes of the Elves had come to Morgoth, and ever down the aisles of the forest was heard the baying of Huan, the great hound of war, whom long ago the Valar unleashed. Then Morgoth recalled the doom of Huan, and he chose one from among the whelps of the race of Draugluin; and he fed him with his own hand upon living flesh, and put his power upon him. Swiftly the wolf grew, until he could creep into no den, but lay huge and hungry before the feet of Morgoth. There the fire and anguish of hell entered into him, and he became filled with a devouring spirit, tormented, terrible and strong. Carcharoth, the Red Maw, he was named, and Morgoth sent him to lie unsleeping before the doors of Angband, lest Huan come.  
Now Carcharoth espied them from afar, and he was filled with doubt; for news had long been brought to Angband that Draugluin was dead. Therefore when they approached he denied them entry, and bade them stand; and he drew near with menace, scenting something strange in the air about them.   
Luthien cast back her foul raiment and she stood forth, small before the might of Carcharoth, but radiant and terrible. Lifting up her hand she commanded him to sleep, saying, “O woe-begotten spirit, fall now into dark oblivion, and forget for a while the dreadful doom of life.” And Carcharoth was felled, as though lightning had smitten him.  
Then they went through the Gate, and down the labyrinthine stair; and together beheld an entirely disconcerting geometrical and dimensional phantasm. Here the planes converged in a bizarre and unwholesome way; as though all evil in all realms were bending forth from it. It was tunnel-like; yet the unwary might be thrown off the path into another dimension. All was cold and damp; slimes dripping everywhere and white, fungus growths that emitted a bad odor and slight phosphorescence, so they were able to see, such as they could. Frequently, as they descended into the depths, the geometry of the place was all wrong, and the planes converged to make what should have been straight curve in upon itself to form shadows, and what should have been convex was concave; and it kept shifting, size was always relative. Sometimes the air became thick, like water, and Beren wondered if it was water, and only their rings kept them feeling like they were breathing and moving normally.  
“I shall be grateful if the ground beneath my feet remains solid, squishy though it is,” Luthien whispered to him, as they slowly moved forward.  
“How do the orcs and trolls do it?” Beren whispered in return.  
“I suspect it is often a one-way trip,” she answered. “As I have heard no tale of this before, but only of the pits and caverns inhabited by orcs and other monsters well known to us.”  
“That may be because we seek Morgoth himself, not his minions,” Beren guessed, as they continued down the dreadful path that led to the Hall of Morgoth.  
Upon seeing Morgoth they were silent with horrified awe. Everything continued to shift, concavity and convexity at unnatural odds with one another, and the sense of ancient evil pervaded the hall. A cold stench of death was upon everything, and their very breath felt poisoned. They could see at once both the physical form that Morgoth had taken, that of manlike creature, and that form that Illuvatar cast him into when he gave himself over wholly to evil, which coalesced around him like an aqueous shadow. But it was as Felagund had predicted, and Morgoth kept the form of an immense man so that he might wear the Silmarils in an iron crown upon his head.  
At first sight, the silver dragon, still uncomfortably trapped in the form of an ogre, was struck dumb by the Silmarils. He stood there, staring at them, and his eyes never strayed from the luminescent jewels, whatever might occur around him. He followed where Beren led him, his gaze never straying from the brilliant, glowing jewels that seemed to hum a mesmerizing call. “Stay right there,” Beren told him, and there was a slight nod of the head as a response. “Don’t move until I give the signal.” Looking from the dragon’s eyes to the Silmarils, Beren immediately began to worry. He hadn’t fully comprehended the immense, incredible power of the jewels to hypnotize and incite desire. At least, Beren thought to himself, for the moment the dragon was able to control himself enough to not lurch after them.  
Dwelling inside his hall of darkness, cold and deep, stretching down into the earth, Morgoth sat motionless upon a throne of cold iron, meant to foil all sorcery. For his power did not depend upon magic and sorcery, but rather upon the power of presence. A vast creature, dark and poisonous with ancient evils practiced so long they had become part of its predatory nature, Morgoth exuded evil. Looking up, trying to lose themselves in the crowd, they beheld his full malevolence. He looked to Luthien like a demon of the abyss, lurking here in the material world. However, the planes could shift, and it was like different colors of glass they were looking through. Morgoth was at once a giant man with a crown of iron, and slithering monster.  
Beren knew it, for he had seen it before. It was the hideous thing that had come up from the depths upon the Mount of Gorgoroth. Evil so deep and ancient it hated all that now dwelt upon the surface of the earth. He looked askance at it, trying not to draw attention to himself, but yet he had to see it, all of it, and understand its malevolence. As a giant sea creature it was, tentacled and glistening, quivering from head to tip, emanating malevolence, the creatures that thronged around it also familiar, they were the amphibious fish-men he had seen before, and they still worshipped him, making the same hideous sounds. Yet, unlike other warm blooded creatures, he had beheld this before and lived, both sane and able to act. And act he would. Upon that foul, slime covered head, some sort of feelers dangled disgustingly from over its mouth, swaying vilely like living things attached to a common source. Looking his right he saw Luthien, still cloaked as a vampire and looking around the room. To his left, he saw the silver dragon, still stuffed into the form of an ogre, and still staring intently upon the Silmarils, and drooling. Never did the ogre’s eyes shift from the objects of desire. Beren was slightly relieved that since most ogres were bone stupid, the drooling would go perhaps unnoticed.  
To their horror, time and space began to shift, vibrating in the most horrific way, as things with no form, only bodies, began to congeal around them. Like giant slugs they were, in various colors, but always variations of orange. They pulsated like creatures of pure energy, moving in and through solid objects, rocks, air, and living beings. There was a permeating horror among the crowd, though they had seen this before, that life was layered upon life, these sickening creatures oozing through them, making their skin crawl and their minds fall apart. Some closer to Morgoth lost their sense, and were snapped up quickly as prey by the monolithic monster upon the throne, ensuring further silence among the crowd. This made Morgoth smile, for he took delight in the fear and torment of his own followers.  
After the unintelligent sluglike beings, came the ones who knew. Sickening to behold, they were a purplish color, with large, cloudy white eyes, and tentacles coming from their mouths as did their great master. These were the ones who had come to Sauron’s Isle with messages. Here they did not need the rainstorms, as the foul dampness chilled and permeated the surrounding rock. They bowed and paid homage to their master, and then took their place at his side.  
He looked aside at Luthien, who was staring at the tentacle creatures in fascinated horror and disgust, frozen in the moment, and so he took her hand and squeezed it tightly, until she broke free from the hypnotic state and turned to acknowledge him. Then she smiled at him, and squeezed his hand in return, followed with another smile. Oh no, he thought to himself, she is going to challenge him, and this will not be like the battle for the tower, where she had bested Sauron. This was the origination of evil, the oldest, foulest thing there was on this material plane, the sole gate and channel of malevolent evil from the pits of the outer planes, where diabolical things grew and bred, feeding upon one another, until only the strongest could stand apart and come through. He saw this and knew they could not win in any sort of open confrontation, they could only steal and flee, counting themselves fortunate if they got away, and only upon the back of a dragon, at that, he thought ruefully. Their disguises holding, she started to work her way forward in the crowd, singing along with the rhythm, moving as a vampire would, desirous of blood and power, when he then pulled her back.  
“No,” he whispered. “Let them finish. Let them kill and eat each other. Sing at the end. Soothe his meal down and put him to sleep.”  
Luthien looked surprised, but readily agreed. They quietly and slowly, so as to attract no attention, made their way to the side, out of the way, out of sight and out of mind, while the frenzy and melee began to take hold. Beren pulled the still drooling ogre along behind him, who never broke eye contact with the Silmarils, which were emitting not only light, but song. Beren wondered if anyone else heard it, or whether they were calling to the dragon; or to him, or for Luthien. He held her cold hand with his hairy paw, still disliking the form of the werewolf, hating them and what they had done, but ever keeping his thoughts upon their mission, and seeing the actions of the other werewolves, those few that there were, he copied their motions. Knowing that the otherworldly beings would feed upon living blood, the wiser ones began to move away. Taking his cue from them, Beren backed up, pulling Luthien with him. He knew they would sense them if they were anywhere near while the crowd was still frenzied and hungry. Remembering what he had seen on the mount, he knew that they would have their chance to strike, when all was quiet, the monsters sated, sleeping it off, the goal now was to remain alive that long. He looked to his side and knew Luthien wanted to attack, to fly up in invisible bat form, and steal a silmaril from the iron crown, but this would be a mistake, they would be seen, and the massive amount of iron in the crown would dissipate the magic of their disguises. They would need to wait, and that would mean enduring the length of their feeding and rituals. He squeezed her hand and whispered into her ear that they must be patient, the right time would come, but they must wait. There would be only one chance to do this right, he knew, or they would be food for the otherworldly fiends that thronged around the ancient one. Indeed, the feeding had begun, the horrid mauve sea beings had turned to the few warm blooded beings in the room, their own minions, and one another, and begun to choose their prey. Beren blanked his mind, making it the same as the grayish brown wall, willing Luthien to do the same for herself and the dragon disguised as an ogre. He knew she could, he could only hope that she would. Standing back in the darkness, they let the eyes flow over and past them, as the slaughter unfolded below. Orc kings, evil men, dark elves, and werewolves all met their end at the throne of Morgoth, food for his true minions. The dark plan was deeper than the oceans, and could outlast any minion, any foot soldier, there was always another orc king, another wraith, another dark lord; but all the wishes of the warm blooded, of the living, were nothing compared to the cold flood from the outer planes, fools fed themselves to these creatures, who came from the outer realms and reaches to the land of light and feeling so they could feed, and who would make this land their own, so like their homeland; more and more answered their master’s call. Low, guttural, unearthly sounds were made by the great one, and it drove the minions mad. Beren and Luthien hid as they tore into one another.  
Hideous, abominable and cruel, the feeding was soon over, the floor salty and red with blood, reeking of the essence of fear; some of the predators limping and wailing with failure, whereupon they were soon set upon by their fellows. One by one, the creatures slew or succeeded one another, until they were either sated or gone, the cavern a lost temple of carnage and havoc. Through it all, Morgoth watched and laughed, enjoying the spectacle.

Beren pulled Luthien by the hand, and she broke free from her trance. Having put herself into a shielded place, she knew she could not watch the slaughter without feeling, so she had been upright asleep, partially blended with the stone, as they could not take such filth into themselves, and he called her forth. The beasts in the cavern below were sleepy or departing, the great one making the same strange sounds that Beren had heard upon the mountaintop. Knowing there would be chanting and trances to come, he saw their opportunity. While the minions swayed and prayed, Beren and Luthien made their way to very feet of Morgoth. Luthien began to sing, and although she did not use words, for these would have given her disguise away, she made tonal sounds that mimicked music, chanting along with them; and the swaying throng fell into a trancelike state, Morgoth closing his eyes, most of the other creatures doing the same. The Silmarils were singing now, along with Luthien, and glowing with the magnificence of the Two Trees. The silver dragon, still crushed into the form of the immense ogre, just stood there and drooled, staring unblinking at the Silmarils. They were calling him, and Beren knew it would only be a matter of time before that ogre erupted into the massive form of a silver dragon, who would destroy anything in his path to get to those shining jewels of great magic. His only hope was to cut one from that iron crown first.  
When the silence of the trance was the deepest, and all the worshippers had put their minds in tune with their master’s Beren slunk in wolf’s form beneath the throne; but Luthien was stripped of her disguise by the will of Morgoth, and he bent his gaze upon her. She was not daunted by his eyes; and she named her own name, and offered her service to sing before him, after the manner of a minstrel. Then Morgoth looking upon her beauty conceived in his thought an evil lust, and a design more dark than any that had yet come into his heart since he fled from Valinor. Thus he was beguiled by his own malice, for he watched her, leaving her free for a while, and taking secret pleasure in his thought. Then suddenly she eluded his sight, and out of the shadows began a song of such surpassing loveliness, and of such blinding power, that he listened perforce; and a blindness came upon him, and his eyes roamed to and fro, seeking her.  
All his court were cast down in slumber; but the Silmarils in the crown on Morgoth’s head blazed forth suddenly with a radiance of white flame; and the burden of that crown and of the jewels bowed down his head, as though the world were set upon it, laden with a weight of care, of fear, and of desire, that even the will of Morgoth could not support. Then Luthien catching up her winged robe sprang into the air, and her voice came dropping down like rain into pools, profound and dark. She cast her cloak before his eyes, and set upon him a dream, dark as the Outer Void where he had once walked alone. Soon he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, the Silmarils blazing and singing from the iron crown perched still upon his head. All things were still.  
The silver dragon, motionless with his own thoughts, continuously eyed the Silmarils with awe and desire. He stared at such perfection, and in keeping with his disguise as an ogre, continued to drool in anticipation. As a dead beast Beren lay upon the ground; but Luthien touching him with her hand roused him, and he cast aside the wolf-hame. Then he drew forth the knife Angrist; and from the iron claws that held it he cut a Silmaril.  
As he closed it in his hand, the radiance well through his living flesh, and his hand became as a shining lamp; but the jewel suffered his touch and hurt him not. It came into Beren’s mind that he would go beyond his vow, and bear out of Angband all three of the Jewels of Feanor; but such was not the doom of the Silmarils. The knife Angrist snapped, and a shard of the blade flying smote the cheek of Morgoth. He groaned and stirred, and all the host of Angband moved in sleep.  
In that moment, the silver dragon could stand no more the pressure of being forced into the form of a giant ogre. He could no longer contain either his own mass or his desire for a Silmaril for himself. The ogre form flew apart, and all creatures were stunned to discover an enormous silver dragon suddenly in their midst. Most of them fled in shocked horror, as the dragon’s feet and tail stomped and crushed whatever was beneath or between himself and the objects of his desire, and Morgoth awoke to a dragon snapping at his head. He waved the beast aside, but not before the dragon had eaten a Silmaril, and the prongs of the crown that held it. The jewel gave the dragon incredible strength and power, giving itself willingly to the beast whose sole desire was to destroy the evil being who had kept the jewels for himself away from the light of day. With this supernatural strength added to his own might, the dragon began to glow, and his scales shown like the Silmarils themselves. It occurred to Beren and Luthien, in one sudden instant, that was the reason the gods had permitted the Silmarils to exist, that this moment might come, and Morgoth destroyed once and for all. With a ferocity the man and elf had never before imagined, their friend and adored silver dragon pet attacked Morgoth with tooth, claws, tail, and a glowing force. He was magnificent, and it was all Morgoth could do to defend himself. The dragon would have that last Silmaril, or die in the taking. The battle between them was terrible, both utterly consumed with lust and desire for the Silmarils, fought to the death. No creature dared to get between them, or even near them, and pandemonium reigned in that hall which shook like a great earthquake under the weight and might of the fight.  
Then terror fell upon Beren and Luthien, and they fled, heedless and without disguise, desiring only to see the light once more. They were neither hindered nor pursued, but the Gate was held against their going out; for Carcharoth had arisen from sleep, and stood now in wrath upon the threshold of Angband. Before they were aware of him, he saw them, and sprang upon them as they ran.  
The spells of Luthien were spent, and she had not time or strength to quell the wolf. But Beren strode forth before her, and in his right and he held aloft the Silmaril. Carcharoth halted, and for a moment was afraid. “Get you gone and fly!” cried Beren, “For here is a fire that shall consume you, and all evil things.” And he thrust the Silmaril before the eyes of the wolf.  
But Carcharoth looked upon that holy jewel and was not daunted, and the devouring spirit within him awoke to sudden fire; and gaping he took suddenly the hand within his jaws, and he bit it off at the wrist. Then swiftly all his inwards were filled with a flame of anguish, and the Silmaril seared his accursed flesh. Howling he fled before them, and the walls of the valley of the Gate echoed with the clamour of his torment. So terrible did he become in his madness that all the creatures of Morgoth that abode in that valley, or were upon any of the roads that led thither, fled far away, for he slew all living things that stood in his path, and burst from the North with ruin upon the world. Of all the terrors that came over into Beleriand ere Angband’s fall the madness of Carcharoth was the most dreadful; for the power of the Silmaril was hidden within him.  
Now Beren lay in a swoon within the perilous gate, and death drew nigh him, for there was venom on the fangs of the wolf. Luthien with her lips drew out the venom, and she put forth all her failing power to staunch the hideous wound. Slowly, over the terrible wound the skin closed, and ceased to bleed. But behind her in the depths of Angband the rumor grew of great wrath aroused. The hosts of Morgoth were beginning to arm themselves for pursuit.  
She drew him to his feet, with a sweet promise of tomorrow and the soft, golden memories of yesterday, and her words were narcotic, dulling his pain. He followed her down the mountainside, and as they ran, he remembered everything. They ran faster and faster, leaping across crevasse and morass, the thundering armies of Angband pursuing them. His pain had vanished at Luthien’s kiss, yet he knew the horde was behind them.   
“Run,” he panted, “Run as fast as you possibly can down this hill and we will leap across the crevasse, and there none might follow us.”  
“Look only at the far landing,” she said, and so they did, bounding like wild deer across the crevasse, and continuing on into the brackish, murky woods. They heard behind them the foul curses of orcs, goblins, and ogres, who could not jump the distance, nor would dare.   
Finally, they had escaped pursuit, but now Beren was spent. They made a quick camp in the deep woods by a little river, and were reminded of the lovely place in which they had first met.  
Huan came to her, and together they tended Beren, even as before when she healed him of the wound that Curufin gave to him. But this wound was fell and poisonous. Long Beren lay, and his spirit wandered upon the dark borders of death, knowing ever an anguish that pursued him from dream to dream. Then suddenly, when her hope was almost spent, he woke again, and looked up, seeing leaves against the sky; and he heard beneath the leaves singing soft and slow beside him Luthien Tinuviel. And it was spring again.  
At last he was drawn back to life by the love of Luthien, and he arose, and together they walked in the woods once more. And they did not hasten from that place, for it seemed fair to them. Luthien indeed was willing to wander in the wild without returning, forgetting house and people and all the glory of the Elf Kingdoms, and for a time Beren was content; but he could not for long forget his oath to return to Menegroth, nor would he withhold Luthien from Thingol for ever. For he held by the law of Men, deeming it perilous to set at naught the will of the father, save at the last need; and it seemed also to him unfit that one so royal and fair as Luthien should live always in the woods, as the rude hunters among Men, without home or honor or the fair things which are the delight of the queens of the Eldalie. Therefore after a while he persuaded her, and their footsteps forsook the houseless lands; and he passed into Doriath, leading Luthien home. So their doom willed it.  
Upon Doriath evil days had fallen. Grief and silence had come upon all its people when Luthien was lost. Long they had sought for her in vain. In that time Thingol turned to Melian; but now she withheld her counsel from him, saying that the doom that he had devised must work to its appointed end, and that he must wait now upon time. But Thingol learned that Luthien had journeyed far from Doriath, for messages came secretly from Celegorm, saying that Felagund was dead, and that Beren was dead, but that Luthien was in Nargothrond, and that Celegorm would wed her. Then Thingol was wrathful, and he sent forth spies, thinking to make war upon Nargothrond; and thus he learned that Luthien was again fled, and that Celegorm and Curufin were driven from Nargothrond. Then his counsel was in doubt, for he had not the strength to assail the seven sons of Feanor; but he sent messengers to Himring to summon their aid in seeking for Luthien, since Celegorm had not sent her to the house of her father, nor had he kept her safely.  
But in the north of his realm his messengers met with a peril sudden and unlooked for; the onslaught of Carcharoth, the wolf of Angband. In his madness he had run ravening from the north, and passing at last over Taur-nu-Fuin upon its eastern side he came down from the sources of Esgalduin like a destroying fire. Nothing hindered him, and the mighty spells of Melian upon the borders of the land stayed him not; for fate drove him, and the power of the Silmaril that he bore to his torment. Thus he burst into the inviolate woods of Doriath, and all fled away in fear. Alone of the messengers Mablung, chief captain of the king escaped, and he brought the dread tidings to Thingol.  
Even in that dark hour Beren and Luthien returned, hastening from the west, and the news of their coming went before them like the sound of music borne by the wind into dark houses where men sit sorrowful. They came at last to the gates of Menegroth, and a great host followed them. Then Beren led Luthien before the throne of Thingol her father; and he looked in wonder upon Beren, whom he had thought dead; but he loved him not, because of the woes that he had brought upon Doriath. But Beren knelt before him and said, “I return according to my word, I am come now to claim my own.”  
And Thingol answered, “What of your quest, and of your vow?”  
But Beren said, “It is fulfilled. Even now a Silmaril is in my hand.”  
Then Thingol said, “Show it to me!”  
And Beren put forth his left hand, slowing opening his fingers; but it was empty. Then he held up his right arm; and proclaimed himself empty-handed.  
Then Thingol’s mood was softened; and Beren sat before his throne upon the left, and Luthien upon the right, and they told all the tale of the Quest, while all there listened and were filled with amazement. And it seemed to Thingol that this Man was unlike all other mortal Men, and among the great in Arda, and the love of Luthien a thing new and strange; and he perceived that their doom might not be withstood by any power of the world. Therefore at the last he yielded his will, and Beren took the hand of Luthien before the throne of her father.  
But now a shadow fell upon the joy of Doriath at the return of Luthien the fair; for learning of the cause of the madness of Carcharoth the people grew the more afraid, perceiving that his danger was fraught with dreadful power because of the holy jewel, and hardly might be overthrown. And Beren, hearing of the onslaught of the Wolf, understood that the Quest was not yet fulfilled.  
Therefore, since daily Carcharoth drew nearer to Menegroth, they prepared the Hunting of the Wolf; of all pursuits of beasts whereof tales tell the most perilous. To that chase went Huan the Hound of Valinor, and Mablung of the Heavy Hand, and Beleg Strongbow, and Beren Erchamion, and Thingol King of Doriath. They rode forth in the morning and passed over the River Esgalduin; but Luthien remained behind at the gates of Menegroth. A dark shadow fell upon her and it seemed to her that the sun had sickened and turned black.  
The hunters turned east and north, and following the course of the river they came at last upon Carcharoth the Wolf in a dark valley, down the northern side whereof Esgalduin fell in a torrent over steep falls. At the foot of the falls Carcharoth drank to east his consuming thirst, and he howled and thus they were aware of him. But he, espying their approach, rushed not suddenly to attack them. It may be that the devil’s cunning of his heart awoke, being for a moment eased of his pain by the sweet waters of Esgalduin; and even as they rode towards him he slunk aside into a deep brake, and there lay hid. But they set a guard about all that place, and waited, and the shadows grew long in the forest.  
Beren stood beside Thingol, and suddenly they were aware that Huan had left their side. Then a great baying awoke in the thicket; for Huan becoming impatient and desiring to look upon this wolf had gone alone to dislodge him. But Carcharoth avoided him, and bursting from the thorns leaped suddenly upon Thingol. Swiftly Beren strode before him with a spear, but Carcharoth swept it aside and felled him, biting at his breast. In that moment Huan leaped from the thicket upon the back of the wolf, and they fell together fighting bitterly; and no battle of wolf and hound has been like to it, for in the baying of Huan was heard the voice of the horns of Orome and the wrath of the Valar, but in the howls of Carcharoth was the hate of Morgoth and malice crueler than teeth of steel; and the rocks were rent by their clamor and fell from on high and choke the falls of Esgalduin. There they fought to the death; but Thingol gave no heed, for he knelt by Beren, seeing that he was sorely hurt.  
Huan in that hour slew Carcharoth; but there in the woven woods of Doriath his own doom long spoken was fulfilled, and he was wounded mortally, and the venom of Morgoth entered into him. Then he came and falling beside Beren bade him farewell before he died. Beren spoke not, but laid his hand upon the head of the hound, and so they parted.  
Mablung and Beleg came hastening to the King’s aid, but when they looked upon what was done they cast aside their spears and wept. Then Mablung took a knife and ripped up the belly of the wolf; and within he was well nigh all consumed as with a fire, but the hand of Beren that held the jewel was yet incorrupt.   
But when Mablung reached forth to touch it, the hand was no more, and the Silmaril lay there unveiled, and the light of it filled the shadows of the forest all around them. Then quickly and in fear Mablung took it and set it in Beren’s living hand; and Beren was roused by the touch of the Silmaril, and held it aloft, and bade Thingol receive it. “Now is the quest achieved,” he said, “And my doom full-wrought,” and then he spoke no more.  
They bore back Beren son of Barahir upon a bier of branches with Huan the wolfhound at his side; and night fell ere they returned to Menegroth. At the feet of Hirilorn the beech tree Luthien met them walking slow, and some bore torches beside the bier. There she set her arms around Beren, and kissed him, bidding him to await her beyond the Western Sea; and he looked upon her eyes ere the spirit left him. But the starlight was quenched and darkness had fallen even upon Luthien Tinuviel. Thus ended the quest of the Silmaril; but the Lay of Leithian, Release from Bondage, does not end.  
For the spirit of Beren at her bidding tarried in the halls of Mandos, unwilling to leave the world, until Luthien came to say her last farewell upon the dim shores of the Outer Sea, when Men that die a final death set out never to return. But the spirit of Luthien fell down into darkness, and at the last it fled, and her body lay like a flower that is suddenly cut off and lies for a while unwithered upon the grass.  
Then a winter, as it were the hoar age of mortal men, fell upon Thingol. But Luthien came to the halls of Mandos, where are the appointed places of the Eldalie, beyond the mansions of the west upon the confines of the world. There those that wait sit in the shadow of their thought. But her beauty was more than their beauty, and her sorrow deeper than their sorrows; and she knelt before Mandos in the great spirit hall. Not all the prayers in the world had ever moved Manwe to change his mind, or turn his eyes from the vastness of eternity, viewing ever the sorrows and temporary triumphs of both the mortal and immortal realms alike, no plea had ever stayed his hand of what must be before, the coil of time falling away, and Luthien beheld him, starlike in majesty, burning both vision and space, yet still so far away. To reach him, a task far greater than any quest, for hope, angst and searching vainly were part of the lathe of time. Yet, she had nothing left to lose. She had no way back, and her heart had already been given, freely in natural wonder and desire.   
Time stood still, and Luthien began to sing, intimidated and softly at first, then gaining in sweetness and volume. The thought that she had seen the last of Beren was too much for her to bear, and she choked back a sob, instead forcing her love to flow into her song. There was a reason she had been granted this one chance, and her love of Beren took flight, and it was then that she had a moment of connectedness with the great one, and felt a vast connection to all living things, a great wheel almost visible to her, the will of one person nothing in the avalanche that was time, against the eternal backdrop of entropy. Upon her now was a pivotal moment in time, a chance that all might succeed or fail based upon the decision of a moment, and remembering the happy way she once felt, the brave and true dedication that Beren had shown to her and her father, Luthien felt the strength to push against this eternal force. Their quest would not have been in vain.   
The song of Luthien before Mandos was the song most fair that ever in words was woven, and the song more sorrowful that ever the world shall hear. Unchanged, imperishable, it is sung still in Valinor beyond the hearing of the world, and listening the Valar are grieved. For Luthien wove two themes of words, of the sorrow of the Eldar and the grief of Men, of the Two Kindreds that were made by Illuvatar to dwell in Arda, the kingdom of Earth amid the innumerable stars. And as she knelt before him her tears fell upon his feet like rain upon the stones; and Mandos was moved to pity, he who never before was so moved, nor has been since.  
Therefore he summoned Beren, and even as Luthien had spoken in the hour of his death they met again beyond the Western Sea. But Mandos had no power to withhold the spirits of Men that were dead within the confines of the world, after their time of waiting; nor could he change the fates of the Children of Iluvatar; and Manwe sought counsel in his inmost thought, where the will of Iluvatar was revealed. Luthien knew that if she let Beren go either past the edges of death, he would be lost to her. She would be hard pressed to ever find him again amongst the Children of the World, or if Iluvatar chose, his spirit might dwell there in his hall forever, to await that last trumpeting when all the heroes of the ages might once again take up arms.  
These were the choices he gave to Luthien. Because of her labors and her sorrow, she should be released from Mandos, and go to Valimar, there to dwell until the world’s end among the Valar, forgetting all griefs that her life had known. Thither Beren could not come, for it was not permitted for the Valar to withhold death from him, which is the gift of Iluvatar to Men. But the other choice was this; that she might return to Middle Earth, and take with her Beren, there to dwell again, but without certitude of life or joy. Then she would become mortal, and subject to a second death, even as he; and ere long she would leave this world forever; and her beauty become only a memory in song.   
This doom she chose, forsaking the Blessed Realm, and putting aside all claim to kinship with those that dwell there; that thus whatever grief might lie in wait, the fates of Beren and Luthien might be joined, and their paths lead together beyond the confines of the world. So it was that alone of the Eldalie she has died indeed, and left the world long ago. Yet in her choice the two kindreds have been joined; and she is the forerunner of many in whom the Eldar see yet, though all the world is changed, the likeness of Luthien the beloved, whom they have lost.   
Beren awoke from his dream of death, and beheld the light again. “We will never have to say goodbye again,” Luthien smiled at him. “For by the grace of Manwe you are restored, and I with you, though without any promise of joy or happiness. We must therefore make our own destiny.”  
“I was dead,” Beren realized, sitting up.   
“Yes,” she smiled, “I sang a song of lamentation and love to Manwe, and he felt at last pity for those who must walk the earth, and aided me. I do not have my powers…”  
“You gave up your powers as a goddess?” he cried.  
“I would never have lived without you,” she confided. “Two weeks, perhaps, at most, then I would have faded like a cut flower. I have found my love, and I would rather have one mortal lifetime with you than ponder the vastness of eternity alone. If I cannot have you, I will have none. There will never again be one like you, just as there will never again be one like me, but our descendants yet have some part to play in the lathe of time. With you by my side, we shall achieve immortality of a different kind.”   
“With you by my side,” he said, taking her hands in his, “I shall be worthy of the thought,” he promised her. “For we have already been through so much together, you and I, for such is the power of love. I know what I would have been missing, and it is a gift greater than any mortal man has ever received before.” They held hands for but a moment in time, yet it was the moment when great forces beyond them moved, and their motion was altered forever. Time stood still, and for them there was both moonlight and sunlight overhead, for such was their joy, and as they embraced, both knew that all was right with the world. She helped him to stand, and with a little lightness of head, and the feeling of his soul resettling within him, they then walked together under the green canopy of trees.  
Then it was that Beren and Luthien returned to the northern lands of Middle Earth, and dwelt together for a time as living man and woman; and they took up again their mortal form in Doriath. Those that saw them were both glad and fearful; and Luthien went to Menegroth and healed the winter of Thingol with the touch of her hand. But Melian looked in her eyes and read the doom that was written there, and turned away; for she knew that a parting beyond the end of the world had come between them, and no grief of loss has been heavier than the grief of Melian the Maia in that hour.   
The Silmaril was set in a necklace of gold, that Beren gave Luthien for a wedding gift. Together they dwelt for a time in Doriath, and wandered freely in the woods. In a soft meadow one morning the sky was dimmed, as if a great shadow was above them. But then the light burst forth, and the silver dragon landed beside them. His scales gleamed like a million mithril shields in the bright sunlight. He was blinding in his beauty and brilliance. Yet, Beren strode forth and put his head upon the mighty dragon’s, just above his eye. “You won,” he said in wonder.   
Luthien standing beside him put her arms around his waist and said, “Your baby dragon destroyed Morgoth! Surely, that little egg you found was a gift from Illuvatar himself! Our quest has fulfilled not only the requirements of my father, but also continued the work and will of the Valar. The Silmarils are safe, and content. Also, their power satisfies him, so he need eat much, much less,” she added with a laugh. “It is a bargain that has been long in the making.”  
“But that makes my friend a target for all those evil doers who would still possess them,” Beren said sadly. His left hand stroked the eye ridges of his beloved pet. A rumbling began in the dragon’s throat.  
“Open your eyes,” Luthien said gently, her arms around his waist. “Can you not see how enormous he has become, of not only body but spirit, and how powerful, because of their presence and safety?” Hearing praise, the rumbling became steadier and louder. “He is purring,” she laughed. “And there is no better place or guardian for the Silmarils than the Silver Dragon.”  
“I suppose,” Beren agreed. The dragon had become so powerful and mighty that he had destroyed Morgoth; what else would challenge him? “It is interesting how these two make him so beautiful and incredibly powerful, where the one drove the wolf mad.”  
“They will suffer no evil to touch them,” Luthien reminded him, “And an animal is not evil unless it is taught to be so.”   
Beren agreed, and enjoyed the company of his friend, whom he had thought lost, but had instead returned with a victory none had anticipated. So the quest of the Silmarils had ended, and when the silver dragon took his leave of them, to fly over the sea to seek others of his own kind, they sorrowed to see him go, but all had concluded as it had been meant to by the will of Iluvatar, and had been foreseen by Melian. Morgoth was gone, Sauron restrained in a bottle, and the lesser forces of evil were leaderless and vagrant.   
Then Beren and Luthien went forth alone, fearing neither thirst nor hunger; and they passed beyond the River Gelion into Ossiriand, and dwelt there in upon the green isle, until all tidings of them ceased. No mortal man spoke ever again with Beren son of Barahir; and none saw Luthien or Beren leave the world, or marked at last where their bodies lay.


End file.
